Schoolstuck
by Mathmatt878
Summary: *Homestuck session made up of complete OCs, you have been warned* After receiving a digital copy of Sburb, Matthew refuses to wait until he gets home to play it, so he gathers thirteen friends and begins the game at school. Fourteen teenagers, six denizens, one land. Disclaimers: I own nothing in the story.
1. A Suggestion is Made

A young man sits in class. It just so happens that today, the first day of June is NOT this young man's birthday. It is exactly like any other day that he would have school, which is to say, extremely boring and tedious. You can't go through the rest of the story referring to him as "young man," what will you name him?

**======= THAT GUY WITH THE FACE**

Um, ok? I guess if you want to call him that I won't object, I'm just here to tell the story. So, uh… That Guy With The Face is still sitting in class, extremely bored. What should he do?

**======= YELL OUT LOUDLY IN AN ATTEMPT TO BRING SOME EXCITEMENT INTO THIS SNOOZE-FEST.**

Are you sure? That doesn't sound like something he would do. When he isn't around his friends he's a pretty quiet dude, and all of his associates are in other classes, or already left for lunch hour. Maybe try again?

**======= I SAID YELL, NOW DO IT**

Alright… That Guy yells at the top of his lungs, startling all of the other students in the room and the teacher. The other students look intently at That Guy, wondering what could cause such a shriek. Luckily for him, the bell rings and he is able to quickly escape the classroom without being questioned.

**======= RUN BACK TO THE CLASSROOM AND CONTINUE TO YELL**

Dude, what the heck? I didn't ask you for a command prompt, you can't just take over the story! He will NOT do that, That Guy is hungry, and will go to the cafeteria to meet with his friends, thank you very much. After a short walk down the halls of the school, he makes it to the large, circular room where the majority of the school are eating their lunches. He pauses for a moment to scan for his friends in the sea of students, then walks over to his three acquaintances who made it to the table before the others. What will their names be?

**======= GUY 2, GUY 3 AND GUY 4**

Wow, you're a creative one aren't you?

**======= WHILE WE'RE AT IT, CHANGE THE FIRST GUY'S NAME TO GUY 1**

Yeah, I'm not going to do that. Let's call them… Nate, Josiah and Patrick, those seem much better than anything you can come up with. Oh, and for That Guy, let's call him Matthew, that sounds like a nice name. Matthew grabs a nearby chair and sits next to his three chums and drops his lunch bag on the table.

"Greetings, mortals," he says as he always does, "sup?" The members of the table look up to greet him, then continue to eat their lunches. This was tradition for the three of them, they would always wait to eat their lunch during the actual lunch hour, while most of their other friends eat earlier and complain about being hungry, or buy their food from the kitchen.

**======= MATTHEW: JUMP ON THE TABLE AND BEGIN TO YODEL**

You're very special, you know that? No, if anyone were to see him do that, he would surely die of embarrassment. Instead, he will greet the two new chums that are entering the cafeteria. Should I even ask you what their names are? Or are you just going to do something stupid with it?

**======= BOB AND BILL MCPOOPSALOT**

Ok, screw you, you don't get to name anyone anymore. These friends will be called Carl and Michael, and they always enter together with the food they purchased from the school kitchen. They sit down at the table beside each other and begin to eat their lunches. Meanwhile, the four members who had been at the table previously have already pulled out their laptop computers and started to play their games. This was also tradition for everyone at their table, once their lunch was complete they would grab their computers and stay on them until the bell rang to dismiss them to class. Today, however, everyone was going to be playing the same game.

**======= CHECKERS?**

What? No. Why would teenage boys want to play checkers? These boys are nerds, they would not play checkers unless there was some form of levelling up introduced. Now stop interrupting me when I'm trying to make ominous foreshadowing. Anyways, look over there! Another chum is coming to the table!

**======= CAPTAIN SH-**

No, no, no, stop right there, you are not allowed to type any profanity into the command prompt box. And stop insulting these poor boys! Contrary to popular belief, nerds have feelings too, now stop and let me introduce the new member of the table. Lets call him… Ryan… Sure, let's go with that! Ryan drops his bag and pulls out his laptop, he had obviously eaten his lunch earlier in the day. Despite the seven people that were already at the table, there was still one more to come. He was always the last one to the table, even when he brought his own lunch, usually when he arrived, everyone had already gotten out their computers. Today was no different, he walked across the cafeteria carrying his tray of food and sat down. Now, before you can mess up his na-

**======= ANDREW**

What? That… That's right. What the heck? I am genuinely in shock, who would have thought that YOU of all people could enter something in right the first time. I've never seen that happen.

**======= GET REKT M8**

And there goes all of my respect for you. Anyways, Andrew arrives at the table and begins to eat while the rest of the group talks amongst themselves in a not-so-quiet tone. They practically have to shout to be heard by one another, the cafeteria is always such a loud place.

"Ok, now that everyone's here," Matthew says smiling, "I would like to suggest a game that we all try out." Carl of course groans and goes back to his game. The rest of the table is relatively interested.

"What's it called?" Ryan asks.

"It's called Sburb"

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals, I have returned, and I like Homestuck now. It's been like a year, so I'm relatively sure no one missed me. My other stories are kinda dead, and this one might die too, but I'm gonna write as much as I can until I lose interest. The only problem with writing Homestuck fics rather than League fics is that the fan base is huge, so very few people are actually gonna read this, but if that's you, then thank you. Yeah, that's about it. Farewell, mortals.


	2. A Quest is Accepted

**======= CONTINUE WITH THE STORY**

"I've been waiting to play this game for so long," Josiah says with a smile, "I've heard it's really fun." Matthew seems a bit confused.

"I haven't seen any advertising for it anyway, how did you hear about it?" He asks, Josiah gets a smug look on his face.

"Can't tell you how yet." He says as Matthew groans. Josiah always seems to know about things before everyone else, even though he tells them he spends most of his time at home sleeping. No matter how many times any of them try to ask him, he remains stiff about it, and it had become an inside joke with the group that he is secretly working with national security and has access to a lot of secret information. "But I can tell you that this game will definitely be fun, and it's absolutely worth our time to play it," Josiah looks at Carl, "and I know for a fact that there will be some parts that you will enjoy, Carl." Carl rolls his eyes and looks at Michael.

"Have you heard anything about this game?" He asks. Michael shakes his head.

"No, but it seems like it could be a lot of fun, you should play with us." Carl lets out a frustrated mix of a groan and a growl and reluctantly agrees to play. Matthew smiles at his ability to convince his friends to play the game. "When will we start?" Carl asks, clearly irritated he was outvoted into playing the game. Matthew shrugs.

"I guess we could start now, if you guys want," he says, "unless you want to include anybody else that isn't here." Ryan speaks up.

"I think we should play with Kobe, he'll feel kind of left out if we don't," he says as he begins looking around the cafeteria, "he's usually in here, isn't he?" Patrick speaks up.

"He's usually sitting with Conor, but he's over there alone. We should go ask him." And with that, the group gets up from the table and goes over to the tall, blond boy on the other side of the room.

"Greetings, mortal," Matthew greets him as Conor laughs, he always laughs at everyone's jokes, no matter how unfunny they were, "where's Kobe?" Conor shrugs.

"I'm not sure, I got here late and I didn't see him in here, so I just sat down. Why do you need to find him?" Matthew glances behind him as if to ask his other friends if it would be ok to bring in another player. Josiah is nodding furiously, yet another thing that he knows which he will never share with anyone else. Matthew turns back to Conor, before answering his question, "We're gonna play this game I got a download for, do you wanna play with us?" Conor sits up in his chair.

"Oh, that sounds like fun!" He says with emphasis, "I would love to play! I'll help you look for Kobe." Conor stands up and begins to walk out of the cafeteria with the rest of the group. The usually quiet Nate speaks up.

"Maybe if we all look around separately we can find him faster." Andrew provides an argument against it, however.

"I dunno, we're running out of time in lunch, we should just look for him together and if we can't find him we start the game without him." Suddenly, Josiah speaks up, as if expecting this entire conversation.

"If we split up, we can contact each other on Pesterchum." Everyone turns to him, confused, but Carl is the only one to speak up.

"What the heck is that?"

"It's this chat client that you can use to keep in contact with your friends!" Josiah replies happily. Carl responds in a continually more irritated tone.

"What's the point of that? Skype is so much better." Josiah pipes up.

"The school blocked the use of Skype, but Pesterchum includes a proxy with it, so it can be used no matter the limitation of the internet." Carl begins to get even more frustrated and yells some generic profanity that if a teacher heard he would certainly be sent to the office, and the group would have to put off playing the game. Ryan steps into the conversation attempting to make peace.

"Screw it, just use the garbage client and split up," he begins, "we should each make an account with our actual names to make it less confusing, alright?" The rest of the group agrees and pulls out their computers, then, after downloading the Pesterchum files from Josiah and the server and client files of the game from Matthew, the group decides to split up into three groups of three. Andrew, Matthew, and Conor head to the computer lab, Ryan, Patrick and Josiah leave for the English room, and Michael, Carl and Nate go to the math room.

"Wait, before we go," Josiah says before the nine friends separate, "I've heard that this game does involve fighting, and since it's a virtual reality game, we will need to grab things for us to fight with. I have some spare strife decks for us to hold the item of our choice in, so we can each take one, and each group can have a spare in case they want to add anyone else to the session." Josiah distributes the strife cards among the friends, then gives each group a spare deck. "You will need to keep that weapon kind throughout the whole story, so choose wisely. This may be more important than finding Kobe, so feel free to take detours to grab whatever you need." And with that, the group splits up.

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. I have returned with yet another chapter! I tried to slow this one down a bit, I know that I introduced literally half the characters in the first chapter. I still did want to add in some new characters and move the plot along, I don't see the point of making chapter two nothing but filler if I have ideas to get out, plus this leads into a nice setup for chapter three, plus you get to see some of the… interesting… weapon kinds everyone chose. I kinda just told my friends, "Hey, name any physical object, and you'll fight with that," some of what they chose makes me concerned for their mental health. I probably won't update until next weekend because of school, unless I get time to, of course. But until then, farewell, mortals.


	3. A Group is Seperated

**======= FOLLOW ANDREW, MATTHEW AND CONOR**

If you say so. The three boys separate from the group and head to the computer lab, wishing to find their friend. Along the way, they discuss the game they are about to play.

"So," Andrew begins, "do you guys know what weapon you're going to choose?" Conor shakes his head but Matthew seems enthusiastic about his choice.

"Oh, big time," he says, "I played this video game once called Tales of Symphonia, and one of the characters in it is named Regal. He's a criminal that always wears handcuffs because of some crime or whatever, I never finished the game." At this point Conor interjects.

"Oh, handcuffs, that's a very cool weapon to use," he says sarcastically, "you can put them on someone and slightly annoy them. Genius." Matthew laughs and punches the tall boy in the arm jokingly.

"Screw you, I think it would be cool. Maybe not handcuffs, per se, but maybe just a chain or something that I could swing around and hook onto people. I think that would be cool." Conor shakes his head.

"It just doesn't seem that useful. And besides, where are you gonna get a chain from at school?" Matthew thinks for a second, then grins.

"I know where, but we should find Kobe first." The three boys continue to discuss their possible strife allocations until they arrive at the computer lab. They recognize a few friendly faces, but they do not see Kobe. "Darn it," Matthew says, "he's not here." After looking around the lab, one of Matthew's other friends waves to him and greets him in his usual manner.

"Prod." The new friend says as he pokes Matthew's arm. Matthew turns and greets his friend.

"Hey, Brendan, fancy seeing you here."

**======= I'M NOT INTERESTED IN THIS, FOLLOW THE ANGRY ONE INSTEAD**

What? How can you not be interested in a new character?

**======= DON'T QUESTION ME, FOOL, FOLLOW THE ANGRY ONE**

Ugh, fine. You, for some reason, decide to look at Carl, Michael and Nate's group on their way to the math room. Nate is dragging behind, while Carl is grumbling to Michael about how he thinks the game is stupid and that he knows he won't like it. Michael, however, is just walking beside him silently, agreeing once in a while so Carl doesn't get more angry. After a while of walking down hallways and much profanity from Carl, the three of them arrive outside the closed math room. Peering through the glass on the door, Michael notices their target, Kobe, along with a small group of other people. Michael tries to open the door, but it remains firmly closed.

"The door's locked," Michael tells the others, "Kobe's in a meeting with some people. Do you guys know what it's for?" Nate speaks up.

"Yeah, they were trying to gather people for some sort of club or team," he says quietly, "he wanted me to go with him, but I was really hungry, so I passed." Carl immediately gives up.

"Well, we tried, let's go get this game started," he says as he begins to walk away. Michael, however, doesn't want to leave Kobe out of the game after all that they had done.

"You guys can go ahead, go try to find weapons or the group or something. I'll wait here and tell Kobe about the game when they finish." Nate accepts but Carl doesn't want to lose his complaining buddy.

"Are you sure? Nate can wait here instead," he offers as the other boy stares at him before replying sarcastically.

"Yeah sure, don't ask me first, just sign me up. I don't have other stuff to do." Carl rolls his eyes.

"No, it's alright," Michael continues, "I think I already have an idea of what to do for my strife deck, you guys can go ahead." Carl hands Michael their group's spare strife deck before following Nate, who had already begun walking away. After the other boys leave, Michael opens his backpack and pulls out his science textbook. "This is so stupid, but it's the best I've got." he says as he selects bookKind for his strife specibus.

**======= ONCE AGAIN I GROW BORED, FOLLOW THOSE OTHER GUYS**

You are VERY impatient, huh? But fine, I don't think Kobe's meeting will be done for a while, let's move onto Ryan, Patrick and Josiah, currently on their way to the English room. Josiah can barely keep his excitement hidden, while Patrick and Ryan don't seem to be relatively excited at all, they just want to start playing. Josiah already knows what he wants to use for his strife specibus, but he's curious as to what the others will choose.

"Do you guys know what you're going to put into your strife decks?" Josiah asks the other two. Patrick answers, while Ryan shakes his head.

"I think," Patrick begins, "that I'm just gonna go with the typical swordsman from all those cool video games. But I don't really have one here with me right now." Josiah provides a solution that also gives him an excuse to get his specious.

"They might have prop swords in the drama room, if you wanna check there."

"Alright, cool, so should we head there now?" Ryan disapproves.

"We're basically at English already, we should see if Kobe's here, then we can go there with him. Plus, this'll give me time to figure out what I'll choose." As they reach the English room they look around, but to their dismay, they don't see Kobe. "Hey Josiah," Ryan says as he points to another boy wearing oversized headphones, "there's your friend Isaac, you think he'll want to play with us?" Josiah thinks for a second, as if trying to remember something, but seems unsure of his answer when he replies.

"Yeah, sure. I think that would be fine." The three boys walk over to the fourth and greet him as he adjusts the volume from his phone.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Josiah takes it upon himself to explain the situation to Isaac, and after a lengthy explanation, he provides his answer. "Sounds like a really fun game, I'd love to play." Josiah turns to Ryan before addressing him.

"Ok, you stay here and forward Isaac the files for Pesterchum and the game, Patrick and I will head to the drama studio to get our strife specibuses, er, specibi? Whatever. Speaking of which," Josiah pulls out their group's spare specibus and hands it to Isaac, "think of what you want to fight with before we start the game." And with that, Patrick and Josiah head off to drama.

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. So yeah, I think this chapter's a bit longer than the other ones, but then again I'm following three different groups at once, so I imagine in would. More characters be showing up, there's only two more that haven't been mentioned yet, so I'm not sure if I should go ahead and add them next chapter to get it over with and start with the game, or if I should give you guys a bit of a break from characters. You'll find out next chapter, I guess. Oh yeah, and bookKind. That's a thing now. That's nowhere near the strangest that's going to show up, just you wait till you see Ryan's… Oh gosh… And I did actually play Symphonia, great game, I wish I finished it, it was just SO GOOD. But yeah, I might be able to update another time before the weekend, but I'll probably wait until then to update it, then work all that day and update again on Sunday. I think that update three times a week will be a good pace for me, but keep in mind that this all depends on how much schoolwork I have to do, so I might update a day earlier or later. That's all folks, farewell, mortals.


	4. A Specibus is Chosen

**======= HAVE EVERYONE MEET UP SO WE DON'T NEED TO FOLLOW THREE DIFFERENT GROUPS**

We can't do that, I can't really retcon the group splitting up, so we kinda have to keep going as separate groups for now. Which group will you decide to follow?

**======= THE ANGRY ONE AND THE QUIET ONE**

You can call them by their names, you know. But alright, we can follow Carl and Nate on their adventure to find the rest of the group after they left Michael behind to wait for Kobe. Nate is walking silently while Carl mumbles to himself, as if he's in a one person conversation.

"This game isn't even going to be fun," he says under his breath, "but I need to play it so I don't lose everyone's respect." Nate looks at him and tries to start a conversation.

"Do you think we should try to catch up with the group," he asks, "or do you want to fill our strife decks first?" Carl snaps out of his trancelike state, unaware that Nate just tried to talk to him.

"What?" Carl asks as Nate rolls his eyes before repeating his question, Carl thinks for a moment before he responds. "I think we should give Michael some time to catch up with Kobe, lets go get some weapons."

"Where do you wanna look for them?" Nate asks.

"Where else would we find weapons in a school?" Carl sarcastically asks, starting to form an evil smile, "the only place in the school that the stupid teachers haven't safety-proofed, metalwork." Nate shrugs and silently follows Carl as he begins to pick up speed."Finally," Nate thinks, "he seems interested in playing the game. Even if I am scared of what he'll choose." Carl, of course, begins muttering to himself as soon as he thinks Nate is out of earshot.

"What will I kill everything with?" He asks himself, "no, don't think about that, think about what will be available in metalwork." He begins to recite what he remembers being in the room the last time he was in metalworking class, which was two years ago in grade eight. "Saws, wood, blades, soldering irons, wires… None of this is exciting enough for me." Carl is frantically racking his brain at this point, desperately wanting to get this sorted our before the game begins, but he begins getting frustrated, and begins swearing to himself. "Ugh, what am I going to do for this!" Nate looks at him with a weird look. Carl is unaware that he had begun raising his voice up until he was practically shouting to himself.

"I can help you out with ideas if you want," Nate offers, "you just need to ask." Carl shakes his head.

"No, I don't need help, I can do this on my own." Carl says in a surprisingly angry tone. Nate holds up his hands in peace.

"Ok," he says calmly, "don't say I didn't offer." Carl rolls his eyes and the two of them remain silent the rest of the way to the metalworking room. As they arrive Carl starts eagerly looking around, ignoring the other students and the teacher that were in the room still eating their lunch, Nate however, is being more subtle about looking for a weapon. Nate wants a weapon that would be effective, but also practical, something that he can wield that isn't pathetically weak. He goes through many different options, but one that continues to come back to him is daggers, they're light, effective, and not really difficult to use. Nate decides what he will allocate to his strife deck, but he is unable to find them in the metalworking room, so he decides to leave Carl here alone to decide on his weapon while he leaves for foods class to get knifes. Carl is obviously too distracted to notice, and even if he did, he wouldn't really care if Nate left or not, his mentality is if they aren't being useful at any given moment, they never will be. Carl continues looking around for anything that will be at all useful, he thinks about saws, but they would be inefficient, he would need to stop any who opposed him from moving if he wanted to actually cause damage with it. And at that moment, it hit him, if he needed the blade to move to do damage, he would just get a moving saw. But where would he find a chainsaw at school?

Nate, meanwhile, is casually heading up to the cooking room, shortly stopping to talk to anyone he recognizes, but generally remaining quiet. No one in the school had ever heard him shout, except for his grade twelve brother of course. As Nate arrives at the foods room he casually glances in and notices the foods instructor is in her office, checking her marks for the end of school which is less than a month away, she will not allow any students to leave the room with any sharp objects from the kitchen under any circumstances. Nate is going to need to be stealthy with this, he waits until the instructor turns to toss some paper in the garbage before he sneaks into the room and ducks into a nearby student kitchen. They only keep butter knifes in the student kitchens, he needs to make it to the demo table at the front of the room if he wants sharp knives. He remains deathly silent, Nate will not allow himself to get caught under any circumstances, in a very silent crawl he makes his way across the floor underneath one of the circle tables in the centre of the room, these are only used for doing theory work during class. From his new position he can tilt his head to peer into the instructor's office, she's still checking her mark book, the demo table is in direct line of sight of the door to the office, he can't get get the knives from there while she's still in her office.

"Ok," Nate thinks to himself, "think about this logically, she will probably stay here for the rest of the lunch hour, so I need to find a way to get her out of there." He looks to the back of the room, the only thing he can hear is the loud hum of the washing machine which the students use to clean their towels after they finish cooking with them. "Bingo," he thinks, he quietly sneaks to the back of the room and carefully turns the dial on the washing machine, stopping the cycle early before it lets out the familiar "ding" notifying the teacher the load was ready for drying. Nate quickly returns to his spot under the table as the foods instructor walks past him, oblivious to the student stealing her cooking knives, as she turns the corner to operate the washing machine, Nate immediately scrambles out from his hiding spot and seizes his chance. He stands up, rips open every drawer behind the demo table, drastically searching for the knives, he finally finds two paring knives and allocates them for his strife specibus before quickly jumping out the door, his heart is beating heavily, unable to believe that he was able to pull that off without getting caught. Nate proudly examines his strife deck, 2 x daggerKind, before returning it to his bag and silently walking back to metalwork, not talking to anyone he passed, that mission had taken all his energy, and he was ready to just start the game at this point.

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. Talking to some (and by that, I mean one) of my readers, apparently it's hard to distinguish each of the characters, which is understandable, I mean, I've introduced twelve of them, and that still isn't all of them. Plus, I haven't really been giving a lot of them characteristics, so that's what the next couple chapters are gonna be, similar to this one, following each group and trying to make each character more distinguishable. I hope I did a good job this chapter, otherwise the next few chapters aren't going to really accomplish much. Talking about this story, Carl talking to himself is his version of splintering, so you can try to narrow down what his classpect is based off that. Nate and Carl at least chose relatively normal weapons, but it just goes all downhill from here, literally half of the people in this session chose nonsense strife specibi (I STILL DON'T KNOW IF IT'S SPECIBUSES), so yeah, you can either look forward to, or dread when those are revealed. I'm probably gonna update tomorrow as well, because weekend. But I may not be able to upload during next week, because it's the last week of school before winter break, so that might come a bit later, but once I do update again it will be winter break and I can spend more time working on these chapters. Until then, farewell, mortals.


	5. A Friend is Found

**======= I WOULD APPRECIATE IF EVERYONE WOULD GROUP UP**

No, screw you. Who do you want to follow this time?

**======= FINE, FOLLOW THE LONELY ONE**

Well I mean, none of these people are really lonely, do you mean Michael?

**======= YES, THE LONELY ONE**

Alright then, we can follow Michael. While Carl and Nate are up to their shenanigans, Michael gets out his laptop and starts doing research on Sburb, wanting to know what to expect from the game. Michael browses as many websites as he can, which is ironic, considering he refuses to study for any schoolwork. He's not necessarily a bad kid, in fact, he's really quite nice, he's just distracted easily and is VERY lazy. Michael is confused by the websites and walkthroughs he finds, most of them end abruptly, or end up destroying the webpage itself. Literally taking the webpage itself apart, separating it into the shreds of coding it is formed from, the short boy is so confused that his computer is going to be affected that he instantly closes the website and checks his computer for any viruses that may have been spread. Everyone in the group is extremely tech-savvy, if any of them lose access to their computers, the possibility completely exists that they will enter a coma-like state of withdrawal, and even though everyone in the group will call everyone else pathetic because of it, they know they would react the same way. Partway through Michael's virus scan he hears the door beside him open, so he looks up and sees the face of his Taiwanese friend looking down at him.

"Oh, uh, hi," Kobe says to him, wondering why his friend seemed to be waiting for him to finish his soccer team wrap-up celebration, "what are you doing here? I told everyone that I was going to be in here at lunch." Michael did a mental face palm.

"You did?" The smaller boy looks up at him, "we're all looking for you so we can all try out this game. I guess we all forgot about what you said, sorry, I guess." Kobe shrugged.

"Although it does kinda hurt that you completely ignored me, I don't really care. You wasted all your time looking for me, so it's all good." Michael puts his computer away and explains the current situation to Kobe. "So we need to find weapons so that we can play a video game?" Kobe asks, clearly confused as to how the two were related, but he went along with it, "seems legit." Michael shrugs.

"That's what Josiah told us, he apparently knows a lot about the game without even playing it." Kobe laughs before responding sarcastically.

"He's part of the the CIA! Ahhhhh!" Michael laughs at the group's ongoing joke, forgetting what they were just talking about, which he tends to do with his homework on an regular basis. "So where do you think we can find weapons?" Kobe asks, reminding Michael about the job at hand.

"Oh yeah, that's kind of a thing that needs to be done. It doesn't have to be an actual weapon, I chose books." Kobe laughs and makes one of his famous bad sarcastic jokes.

"Ahaha, then I think sticks would be a very good choice, no wait, dirt. Yes, dirt would obviously be the strongest weapon of them all," Michael snickers at Kobe's sarcasm before telling him to shut up and seriously think about it. "Well," Kobe thinks out loud, "I don't want something useless like what you chose, I'd like a gun, but that would probably be hard to get at school," he shrugs, "I'll figure it out later."

"Well," Michael begins, "if we aren't going to find you a strife sbecibus, we should probably try to catch up with the rest of the group." Kobe agrees.

"Oh gosh, I can't wait to see what everyone else chose, who else is playing?" Kobe asks as Michael tries to list everyone that was part of the group before they all sperated.

"Um, us two, Carl, Matthew, Ryan, Nate, Patrick, Josiah, Andrew, plus Matthew and Ryan's friend Conor."

"Oh, I know Conor, the tall, blond one?"

"I think so, haha, I kinda forgot. Carl was complaining to me the entire way here about how he didn't want to play, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he just went off and did his own thing in the game while the rest of us followed the main story." Kobe shrugs.

"Screw him, he would probably get mad at us for not taking the game as serious as he would. He's kinda mean sometimes." Now it's Michael's turn to shrug.

"He can be, I guess, but I can't really ditch him, we've been friends for years. And he's usually only mean to people that bother him." Kobe laughs before making another joke.

"That must be why he's always so mad at Matthew, ha!" The smaller of the pair laughs at the burn.

"Oo, kill em," Michael laughs. The two boys remained relatively quiet on the rest of the way back to the cafeteria. As they arrive, Kobe notices the lack of people there.

"There's so few people here, lunch is almost over, are you sure we're gonna have time to play this game?"

"I dunno, I guess we can just start it and finish it later," Michael responds, "speaking of the game, I should probably send you the files we need for the game." Michael sends Kobe the server and client files of Sburb along with Pesterchum before he explains how the games and chat client work. After Kobe finishes installing the files, he opens Pesterchum and has already received a list of usernames to add.

"Wait," he says, "you named like ten people, there are thirteen names on this list. Minus the ten people you listed, that's three more people!" Michael responds sarcastically.

"Yes, very good, Kobe. That's how math works." Kobe laughs despite the derogatory sarcasm.

"Shut up," He says, "I mean who are the other four?" Michael shrugged.

"Josiah said that he had a few extra strife decks for us to give out," he responds, "maybe everyone else found some friends to play with us."

"I guess," Kobe says, "I guess it will be nice to play with more friends, friends are nice." Michael just kinda looks at the asian strangely. "Don't judge me," he says simply. Michael giggles.

"Ok, buddy." Kobe punches him as they both laugh.

"I told you to shut up." Kobe starts to add the users that were given to him, noticing the naming pattern. MA, CB, and RC. "Aren't these the initials of all of your friends?" Michael looks at the list and shrugs.

"Might be, I don't know all of their last names, haha," the short boy responds, "CR is Carl, MA is Matthew, JD is Josiah, PM is Patrick, AS is Andrew, NG is Nate, RC is Ryan, and MR is me. The others are BW, AV, IF, CB, and TC, I guess CB would be Conor then. What is Conor's last name, anyways?"

"I dunno," Kobe responds, "it's like black baby or something." Michael completely loses it.

"AHAHA! Are you serious? HA! That's great." Kobe seems to get offended for Conor.

"Wow, what a rude dude." Michael immediately calms down as a group of exactly twelve people walk into the cafeteria, some carrying various weapons, others carrying miscellaneous objects. As they enter the room the remaining small groups of kids turn to look at them all. One of them walks over to the table Kobe and Michael are sitting at.

"Let's get this game started." Matthew says.

**Author's Notes**

Belated greetings, mortals. I apologize to everyone who was waiting for me to upload this chapter (yeah that's right, both of you!), something came up yesterday that took up four hours of my day, then I had to do homework which I thought was due the next day but I ended up having an extra week to do. TL;DR: I'm dumb and I'm sorry, but I'm also ahead in a subject for once, so yeah! Anyways, since there's only two more weeks until my winter break I may need more time to finish the next chapters, but I'm going to try to upload at least two chapters per week. The end of this chapter was kind of me just listing what everyone's usernames are going to be, but I'll probably only use the initials when they talk to one another so I don't reveal their full names to anyone who reads this. Like last chapter, I'm trying to add more personality to the characters, but I don't think I did too well of a job for these two. Michael's just kinda quiet and Kobe's sort of awkward. Also, yes, Conor's last name is actual really close to black baby, please don't think I'm being racist, I'm really just telling you about his name without actually telling you his name, please understand. That's all for this chapter, so farewell, mortals.


	6. A Chum is Introduced

**======= PLAY THE GAME!**

Don't you want to know where the extra two people came from?

**======= NO. PLAY THE GAME**

But if I start using names you don't know you'll get confused.

**======= DON'T CARE. GAME**

This doesn't seem right, will you be alright if I go back in time for a little bit?

**======= NO**

Great, thanks. Ok, so, let's say Matthew and them, we haven't seen them in a while. So let's just go back in time to where they just got to the computer lab.

"Hey, Brendan, fancy seeing you here." Matthew says as he looks at his red-headed friend. The older boy smiles.

"Heeeeelllooo," Brendan says in his usual cheery way, "since when do you come to the computer lab at lunch?"

"We were looking for Kobe, have you seen him?" Brendan shakes his head.

"We were in a Skype call last night, but that's about it." Matthew face palms.

"I know that you were, I was the one that added you to the call."

"Oh yeah, haha!" Brendan laughs. Matthew smiles, Brendan was always so contagious with his laugh. "Why do you need to find Kobe?" He asks.

"I got this new game," Matthew starts, "and we were looking for Kobe to see if he wanted to play with us." Brendan seems interested.

"Seems like fun, can I play, or is there no room?" Matthew turns around to look for his friends, but they had split among the computer lab, looking for their friend. Failing to find them, he shrugs.

"Sure, why not?"

"Yay!" Brendan smiles, "do I need to buy anything for it?" Matthew smiles then replies sarcastically.

"Yes," he says, making his sarcasm as obvious as possible, "I of all people would pay for something. You know how much money I have to spend, I basically just hand out money to everyone I see." Brendan laughs.

"I forgot who I was talking to, ya cheapskate!" Both boys laugh, as Matthew pulls out his computer to send him the files for the game and the chat client. "Is there anything I need to know before we start?" Brendan asks, "is it like an RPG where I pretend to be someone else? I love coming up with characters!" Brendan was always into roleplaying, whether that be Dungeons and Dragons, impersonating his favourite video game characters, or just pretending to be someone else. Matthew shakes his head.

"Nope, I think the only thing you need is just to get a weapon before the game starts, but I think that may be hard at school. You can probably find one later, it shouldn't matter."

"Kay!" Brendan says cheerily. Andrew and Conor return to the two boys.

"He's not here," Andrew says, "should we just go back to the cafeteria?" Matthew shrugs and turns to Conor and Brendan.

"Do you guys need anything before we start?" Brendan shakes his head, while Conor replies.

"I think I should find a weapon before we start, but I have no ideas! Ugh, the world is so frustrating," he says sarcastically, "should I use blankets, I wanna use blankets." The other three boys laugh.

"I will legit pay you," Matthew says, "if you use blanketKind." Conor laughs, and looks at him.

"I will do it, don't test me." Matthew laughs.

"It's funny," he says, "because I know that you actually will." Conor has already left the lab running in the direction of the sewing room. "Oh no," Matthew groans, "he's actually gonna do it. We've basically already lost this game, Andrew, go follow Conor and make sure he only does minimally stupid things, Brendan, take this strife deck and follow me, we're getting some weapons."

"Roger that," Andrew says in a mock-military voice, "deployed to pursuit, moving out!" Brendan, feeling the need to correct his terminology, speaks up.

"I actually learned this from cadets, technically when the soldier is told to do something, he doesn't respond with "roger that," he says "yes, sir," and immediately follows the captain's orders." Andrew attempts to counter Brendan's statement.

"But what if, Matthew was not the captain at all? DUN DUN DUN!" He mocks the stereotypical dramatic music as Matthew laughs.

"I did, I have decided that I am the captain, now MOVE OUT SOLDIER!" Matthew shouts at his friend.

"YES, SIR!" Andrew shouts before looking at Brendan, laughing, and running after the rapidly escaping blond boy. Matthew pulls the group's spare strife deck out of his backpack and tosses it to Brendan.

"When you find a weapon you want to use, stick it in here and you'll become proficient with it." Brendan looks a little surprised.

"Hey," he says, "you still remember the DnD terminology from all those years ago! Haha!" Matthew shakes his head.

"Come on, it wasn't that long ago, and don't hold it against me! I said I just don't like the game anymore." Brendan looks at him.

"That's not was your brother told me!" Matthew shakes his head more.

"Don't listen to Adam, just don't." Brendan looks to the back of the computer lab where Matthew's older brother was on his laptop, eating his lunch.

"Is he going to play with us?" Brendan asks. Matthew shakes his head.

"Nah, he probably won't interact with us much, he doesn't really know any of my friends. It would just be pretty awkward to him." Brendan shrugs.

"Fair enough, lets go!" And with that, the two boys left the computer lab, and after walking for a bit, Matthew makes a request.

"Hey, I wanna step outside for a bit to get my bike chain. I think having chainKind would be pretty cool to have for a weapon. That's partly why I sent Andrew out to follow Conor, he was kind of making fun of me for wanting chainKind, but you gotta admit, it does sound pretty cool, doesn't it?" Brendan thinks for a second, then replies.

"Yeah, it does! This one character I made from DnD had this whole chamber of chains that he called the "chainber," I thought it was pretty funny at the time." Matthew nods.

"Was this with Adam? Or just a one-person session?"

"One-person, this was before I got you guys into DnD." Matthew looks impressed.

"Wow, that really was a long time ago, that was when I was in grade seven, wasn't it?"

"I think so," Brendan shrugs, "I sometimes forget that you're not in the same grade as us, what are you in right now?"

"Ten, but don't think you're so good just because you're the oldest out of all of our players so far, we're all really big nerds, don't underestimate our video game skills," Matthew jokes.

"I got you into League of Legends AND DnD, I'm much nerdier than you are." Brendan laughs. The pair approach the main doors to the school, and quickly run out to the bike rack as Matthew starts loosening the chain.

"This is absolutely disgusting, but it will totally be worth it." He says as he starts yanking on the chain. An unknown voice from behind the two boys speak up.

"Um, Matthew? What are you doing?" Matthew recognizes the voice and turns to face the new person. A smile reaches across his face, as he greets the figure.

"Greetings, mortal!" A small middle-eastern boy stood next to the original group of two.

"Not much, I went home for lunch and when I got back you were tinkering with your bike. What's with that?" Brendan speaks up.

"We're planning to play a game, and we need weapons for it," he says as he puts out his hand, "My name is Brendan, what's yours?" Matthew answers for the boy.

"That's Abhiraj, he used to take taekwondo with me, but he quit before he got his black belt." Matthew continues to struggle with the bike chain, occasionally grunting from his efforts.

"Yeah," Abhiraj says, "I went on vacation for a bit and I never came back." Matthew pulls with a lot more force and the chain snaps, sending him falling backwards onto the ground.

"Got it!" Matthew shouts. Brendan cheers.

"Yay! Now we can play!" Matthew stands up, brushing himself off, and puts the chain into his strife deck, allocating it with chainKind. Abhiraj speaks up again in his usual quiet tone.

"So, you guys are going to play a game? Is it Nintendo?" Abhiraj is always interested in all of the new Nintendo releases. Matthew shakes his head.

"I just got this download link for the game and it sounded cool so I got everyone else to play it too. Do you wanna play?" Abhiraj thinks for a second.

"When are we going to play it?" He asks, "lunch is over in like ten minutes, do we have time?"

"Nah, but we're gonna start, then probably continue tomorrow at lunch." Abhiraj shrugs.

"Yeah sure, I'll play. If we only have a few minutes then we should get started." Matthew smiles.

"Great!" He turns to Brendan, "Ok, Brendan, send him the files for the game and Pesterchum, and while you're at it, make an account yourself. I'll go wash my hands and meet you guys in the cafeteria, if no one's there yet then just wait for us." The other two boys nod and the three boys separate, all eager to start playing the game.

**======= THIS IS STUPID. PLAY THE GAME**

I would, but I won't. We still need to see what Conor, Andrew, Isaac, Ryan, Patrick and Josiah choose for their strife specibuses (I still think it should be specibi!). Plus, we only have 13 people now, if you read the summary, it says we still need one last mystery character.

**======= STUPID. PLAY**

Are your words really that hard to use? No, they're not, so use them! And we will play soon, I promise… after we follow the other three groups for a little bit. But after that, I promise!

**======= EVERYONE: IGNORE THE AUTHOR AND BEGIN PLAYING IMMEDIATELY**

They can't hear you now. Goodbye for now!

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. Took me a while to write this chapter, after this weekend I'm on my last week until winter break, so I've been trying to finish up my homework. Still probably going to update the next two chapters on Saturday and Sunday, meaning that after this weekend and during next week, I'm going to finish up with the character development chapters, and the game will finally begin! Yay! About this chapter: blanketKind isn't the weirdest strife kind that will be mentioned in this story, just wait until next chapter. Oh gosh… the horror. Anyways, yeah, last chapter made it seem like the game was going to start, but that would be silly, in the honour of Homestuck, this is going to take at LEAST a full act before anyone starts playing the game. I'm going to try to write the next chapters fast, but well, because I really want to start the game, and if I finish all of my homework and the chapters soon enough in the weekend, I might update an extra chapter on Sunday, and the game will start through the week. But please, keep in my that these are self-set deadlines, I may not be able to keep up with them, but I really hope I can, because that would just be awesome. Until next time, or I guess tomorrow, farewell, mortals.


	7. A Weapon is Selected

**======= BEGIN THE GAME NOW YOU FOOL**

Hey, no name calling, it's mean. And I already told you, we need to tie up all the loose ends before we can begin the game. So there are three groups that still haven't been decided on, Ryan and Isaac, Patrick and Josiah, and Conor and Andrew, which one?

**======= GUY 11**

They all have names now, there's no need to call them "Guy whatever" anymore. Which one do you want to follow?

**======= HEADPHONE GUY**

Isaac? Alrighty then, he was with Ryan in the English room. Ryan finishes giving Isaac the files for the game and Pesterchum, and they start discussing the game they are about to play.

"So, do you know what weapon you want to use?" Ryan asks. Isaac shakes his head.

"Nah, I have no idea," The orange-haired cool kid replied, "but I think that dual wielding would be pretty cool. Just like, spinning around a bunch of enemies and stabbing them a bunch." Ryan shrugs.

"Yeah, I guess that would be cool. I have no idea what I would choose. It's just a game, so I might just choose something funny as a joke, haha." The two boys laugh before settling in an awkward silence. "So, do you want to try to find things around the school?"

"I dunno," Isaac shrugs, "I might walk around outside for a bit, air usually helps me think."

"Alright, I'll join you," Ryan replies cheerily, "I like being outside too." And with that, the two boys get up and walk out of the school as they turn to the parking lot behind the school, there usually aren't a lot of people behind the school at lunch which makes it quieter for them to think. Ryan begins glancing around the lot, searching for any inspiration for a weapon choice, he notices a pile of trash near one of the back doors to the school. "Hey," he begins, "how mad do you think Josiah would be if I took some of that garbage for my weapon?" Isaac laughs.

"I dare you," he says, "to take the first thing you grab from that garbage pile and put that in your weapon slot thing." Ryan looks at him.

"You think I won't?" He laughs, jokingly making himself seem more intimidating.

"I know you won't" Isaac challenges. Ryan looks to the trash pile then back to the other boy.

"Try me," he simply says as he walks over to the garbage pile, closes his eyes and reaches towards it. He moves his hand around in the pile, feeling for something solid to take. He finally settles on a cylinder shaped object, grabs it, and pulls it out, before he holds it up for Isaac to see. As the other boy beholds Ryan's treasure, he bursts out laughing.

"HAHA! YES! YOU HAVE TO!" He howls, Ryan opens his eyes to see what was so funny. He had pulled out an empty bubble solution container, with the wand still inside. He does a mental face palm as Isaac continues laughing hysterically.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Ryan mutters to himself as he pulls out his strife deck and turns to his companion, "don't make me do this!" Ryan threatens as he points to the boy. Isaac is still laughing with literal tears in his eyes.

"Nah, man, you said you would," he challenges, "if you do, I'll let you choose my specibus." Ryan thinks for a moment, smiles, and removes the bubble wand from the container and shoving it into the strife specibus, allocating it with bubblewandKind. Isaac looks shocked. "You actually did it?!" he laughs, looking awestruck, "man, I thought you would wimp out. I have so much respect for you right now." Ryan smiles as he tries to play off what just happened.

"It's just a game, why not make it fun?" he laughs, "but I'm holding you to your word, you have to let me decide your weapon for you." Isaac shrugs.

"Sure, why not? Pick my poison," he responds, as the other, dark-haired boy looks around them. Noticing a large stick across the parking lot, he points to it.

"That stick," he commands, "stickKind." Isaac laughs.

"Man, that thing is huge, I can't use that." Ryan shakes his head.

"I thought we had a deal! Does your word mean nothing?" He says as he attempts to guilt the other boy into doing his bidding. Isaac shakes his head.

"I physically cannot fight with that thing, how about I break it in half and use two smaller sticks instead? Will that please you, oh highness?" He says sarcastically, Ryan goes along with the joke.

"Yes, my squire, that would greatly please me. Now BOW TO ME PEASANT!" He shouts as they both begin laughing. Isaac begins to walk over to the stick and, with some effort, picks it up before smacking it on the ground, splintering the centre of it. Ryan mocks him. "Come on, ya wimp! Be a man!" Isaac glares at him.

"Dude, if I fight you right now, all you have is a bubble wand to defend yourself with. Don't test me, boy," he threatens as they both laugh again. Isaac continues to grab the large stick and smash it against the concrete ground, slowly tiring his arms, silently hoping that it would break soon. With one final surge of effort, Isaac grabs the stick, lifts it high above his head and brings it crashing down to the ground, shattering it into many smaller pieces. He lets out a quiet sigh of relief as he examines the shards of the once huge stick, deciding which two would be his weapons. He decides on two fair-sized sticks from opposite ends of the stick, ending in splintered, sharp edges. "Here we go," he says as he looks at Ryan, "look at what you've done!" Ryan laughs.

"You brought this on yourself, now let's go! Weaponize!" Isaac shakes his head as he pulls out his strife deck. He holds the two sticks together in one hand and the deck in the other, before whispering to himself.

"This is stupid," he hisses as his sbecibus is allocated with 2 x needleKind. Isaac looks at the shorter boy, "ok we should probably head back inside now, the principal probably wouldn't like us loitering around the back parking lot. Ryan agrees.

"Alright, the plan was after we find everyone we would meet back in the cafeteria, and lunch is almost over, so we should probably hurry up." The two boys start walking back to the doors of the school, and as they enter they see Matthew heading out of the washroom, still with slightly damp hands. Ryan walks up to him and greets him as Matthew turns towards them.

"Greetings, mortal. Hey Isaac." Matthew says.

"Yo," Isaac responds, "are you playing the game too?" Matthew nods.

"Yeah, I was the one that got the files for it in the first place. What have you guys been up to?" Ryan speaks up.

"We were getting the best weapons ever, you need to see em." Matthew laughs.

"This can end in NOTHING but disaster." Ryan pulls out his strife deck and retrieves his bubble wand, pointing it at Matthew.

"You know you're jealous," Ryan laughs, "find someone with a better weapon than me, I dare you!"

"Well, Conor was gonna get blanketKind, which would only be slightly worse than bubbles," Matthew laughs in response. Ryan shrugs.

"I still think bubbles are better. Just walk up to all of the NPCs in the game and just be like; YOU WHAT MATE?!" All three of the boys begin laughing at the hypothetical situation. After conversing for a short while, they decide to start heading to the cafeteria to meet up with the rest of their group. As they reach the hallway leading to the cafeteria, they see Carl and Nate walking towards them from the other end of the hallway, Carl quietly muttering to himself.

"Hey guys," Matthew greets, "do you guys have specibi, er, specibuses yet?" Nate nods while Carl completely ignores the question, still whispering to himself. After a tap on the shoulder by Nate, he finally shuts up.

"What?" He asks, completely oblivious to what was happening around him. Nate repeats the question for him as he shakes his head. "Not yet, but I have a great idea for one," he says, "where's Michael and everyone else?" Matthew shrugs.

"I thought we were going to be late, I spent a lot of time trying to get my bike chain separated from my bike. Speaking of being late, wasn't Abhiraj and Brendan supposed to be here already?" Nate speaks up.

"We passed them on our way here, the guy with Abhiraj wanted to go to his locker for a second." And sure enough, Brendan and Abhiraj start walking towards the group from down the hallway where Nate and Carl had come from.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Abhiraj says in his quiet voice.

"We're just waiting here for everyone else to show up," Carl says irritably, "and they should hurry up! I'm getting so bored!" Nobody wanted to be around Carl when he was angry, simply interacting with him when he was in a bad mood could make him burst into a stream of swear words or to punch whoever was closest to him.

"We just need to wait for Conor, Andrew, Josiah, Patrick, Michael and Kobe," Matthew says, "just try not to kill anyone for a few more minutes." Carl makes an audible groaning sound and walks away from the group and leans against a nearby wall, starting to talk to himself. The rest of the group ignores him, Carl was always very bitter about most things, even doing nothing. The group hears footsteps approaching from behind Matthew, Ryan and Isaac, and as they turn around, they see three boys, Patrick, Josiah, and another boy that none of them had seen today.

"Hey, Thomas, are you gonna play with us?" Abhiraj asks.

**Author's Notes**

Once again, belated greetings, mortals. I really wanted to upload this chapter yesterday, but… um… video games. So yeah, I wrote about half of this chapter yesterday, and finished it this morning, I will try to upload another chapter today, this one counts as Saturday's update. But I still do need to do homework for the last week of school, so I may have to upload today's chapter tomorrow instead, sorry! My ideal situation is I finish all of my homework and studying early in the day so that I can update another chapter tonight and still have time to goof around, but that seems unlikely at this rate. Anyways, moving on to the chapter, I finally introduced the last character! Now, if you can remember them all, that would be impressive, I haven't finished giving everyone identities, so you just have the names to go by. Next chapter I should be done with that, so maybe you can try to associate them with characteristics pretty soon, and you can be able to recognize who they actually are when I say, "this person did this." But then again, I guess you could associate them with the weapons they chose, I mean it's pretty hard to forget bubblewandKind. That's pretty much all that happened in this chapter, wasn't it? Two specibi/specibuses were chosen, and the last character was introduced. Not really exciting, but hey, the game is two chapters away form starting, so you have that to look forward to. Until next chapter, farewell, mortals.


	8. A Disorder is Shown

**======= THAT'S CLOSE ENOUGH TO EVERYONE. BEGIN THE GAME NOW**

I would love to, but I simply cannot, a new boy has just appeared and we need to find out how he was brought into this, so this time I'm deciding that we will follow Patrick and Josiah.

**======= REALLY? YOU'VE JUST DECIDED THAT?**

Yep. Screw you.

**======= :(**

Anyways, the last we saw of them was when they left the English room to go to drama. Josiah and Patrick walk down the hallways on the way to their destination, Josiah still seeming extremely happy.

"Why can't you tell us how you know all this stuff already?" Patrick asks, "is it a secret? Because I promise I'll keep it if you tell me." Josiah shakes his head and smile.

"It's a secret, but I was sworn to secrecy, at least until the game starts," Josiah responds, "it will become clear once we begin, at least to Matthew, he was always into paradoxes and stuff." Patrick turns his head on an angle.

"Paradoxes? Like time travel and stuff? Is that part of the game? That would be so cool!" Josiah stops himself.

"Wow, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be," he says, "I really can't tell anyone about anything until after the game starts and everything makes sense. Can you please not tell anyone what I've mentioned?" Patrick nods.

"No problem, everyone makes mistakes," he smiles, and Josiah is put at ease.

"Thanks, I promise after you wake I'll tell you everything," as he says this he instantly covers his mouth with his hands, "darn it, I'm so stupid!"

"It's alright, I don't understand what you mean anyways, I'm sure whoever is swearing you to secrecy won't get mad at that," Patrick assures him, "how would they know what you're doing while you're at school?" Josiah shrugs.

"I dunno," he says, very puzzled, "they just seem to know what's going on, and they try to give me advice about everything, but there's so many, I can't keep their instructions straight!" Josiah seems to be getting increasingly frustrated.

"Whatever," Patrick says, suddenly talking in a much darker tone, "who even cares anyways? It's just a stupid game," Josiah becomes extremely confused, and looks over at Patrick to see if he is trying to make a joke of some sort, but Patrick is just looking down at his feet, seemingly miserable.

"Are you ok?" Josiah asks, genuinely concerned for his friend's wellbeing. Patrick turns his head and glares at him.

"Shut up," he says coldly.

"O… k?" Josiah says, extremely confused about the situation. They continue the walk in complete silence for the rest of the way, with Josiah afraid to offend Patrick anymore than he seems to already have been. As they arrive at the drama room, Patrick suddenly seems to brighten up, and holds the door open for Josiah.

"After you," he says politely. Josiah continues to get more confused than he already is.

"Thanks?" Josiah half says, half asks. Patrick smiles largely, he seemed to be going through random, abrupt mood swings, which Josiah was very confused about. Patrick had never gone through anything like this before, and he was always one of the most innocent of the group, never doing anything bad. As they enter the room, they immediately run into another friend they had not yet seen today.

"Hello, gentlemen," the boy greets, "what brings you by?"

"Hey Thomas," Josiah replies, "we're looking for props, think you can help us?" Thomas thinks for a moment.

"I'm not really supposed to lend out the props," the black-haired boy says, "how long do you need them for?"

"Probably a month or so," Josiah says, "but trust me, you won't be needing them in a few minutes," Thomas is confused, but doesn't question Josiah's riddles, Thomas was partially a member of their circle of friends and was well-aware of Josiah's advanced knowledge.

"Sure, what kind of props do you need?" Thomas says cheerily. Patrick suddenly speaks up.

"Weapons, do you have any swords?" The tall boy asks. Thomas looks behind him and nods.

"Luckily for you, we were thinking about doing a "Three Musketeers" play in a few months, we got swords o' plenty!" Patrick smiles.

"Great, I'll go check them out, Josiah, you should find out what you want," he says before we walks past Thomas into the theatre-like room. Thomas turns back to Josiah.

"What about you? What can I get for you?" Josiah holds his hand up, indicating he stop.

"I don't need help, I know exactly what I want, I just came here for Patrick," Thomas looks confused once more, but goes along with it.

"Alright, so what are you gonna do?"

"I was going to get a stick from outside, I need to get a weapon for a video game we're all gonna play, and I thought a staff would be really cool." Thomas becomes interested, being the avid gamer he is.

"A game? Like Skyrim? I LOVE Skyrim! Can I play with you guys?" Josiah shrugs, playing the question off as if it was nothing, even though he had seen Thomas asleep on Derse in his tower. Josiah knows that he is destined to play with them, and is honestly very excited to tell him.

"Sure, I think you'd have fun," he says simply, "I our group's spare strife deck to Isaac, but I've been told I can make you one later. Until then, try to think about what you'd like for a weapon."

"Got it," Thomas says, "you go grab your stick, and I'll tell Patrick I'm playing too. Where should I meet you when you're done?"

"I'll only be a minute," Josiah replies, "wait for me here and we can head to the cafeteria together."

"Alrighty then, see ya then," Thomas says with a smile as he turns back into the drama room. Spotting Patrick examining some fake swords, Thomas walks over to him and begins talking to him.

"Hey man, I'm gonna be playing with you guys, isn't that great?" Patrick glares at him.

"Stop distracting me, I need to find a sword," he says coldly.

"Geez, what's your problem?" The shorter boy replies sharply.

"Get outta here," Patrick says, anger increasing, "I need to find a sword." Thomas holds his hands up in peace and walks backwards, stopping outside the door to the theatre, where Josiah was already waiting for him.

"Wow, that was fast," Thomas says, as Josiah shrugs.

"It really isn't hard to find a stick around a school," he responds, "is Patrick almost done?"

"I dunno," Thomas says, slightly lowering his voice, "he seemed fine when he walked in here, but when I just talked to him, he seemed really angry at something."

"I have no idea either," Josiah replies, matching his lowered tone of voice, "he went through like a mood swing or something, like he has a whole new personality. And it seems like a bit of a jerk." Thomas glances backwards and sees that Patrick is heading their way with a sword and strife deck in hand, with a smile on his face.

"Alright guys, I found my sword, we ready to go?" Thomas and Josiah glance at each other, exchange a strange glance, and nod.

"Let's get going!" Josiah says eagerly. Patrick holds up his two objects.

"So how do I set this as my weapon?" He asks Josiah. He points to the stick, then the strife deck.

"Take the sword, and just put it in the deck, that should turn it into a card, and you can then take it out at any time," Patrick nods.

"Cool," he says as he allocates his specibus with bladeKind. The three boys continue to walk down the hallway towards the cafeteria, Josiah and Thomas afraid to talk for fear of changing Patrick's mood. As they turn a corner, they find themselves facing a large portion of the rest of their group.

"Hey, Thomas, are you gonna play with us?" Abhiraj asks.

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. This chapter came a day late, I apologize to both of you that cared, but it's the last week of school before break! I'm trying my best to balance school, the story and video games, so I may not be able to update another time before the end of the week, once again, sorry to both of you that cared. Now, onwards to the chapter! Patrick as multiple personality disorder, that's what this whole chapter was supposed to do, that, and introduce Thomas. Patrick's multiple (or I guess, two) personalities are his version of splintering, I know that's kind of cheating, but I don't really care, there are two rage players, three knights, and a heart player, I was running out of ideas for splintering. Oh yeah, did I mention that? I didn't force my friends to choose one of each class and aspect, so we don't have a hope or a life player, and no maids, seers or sylphs. Meanwhile, the three knights are just chilling there messing up our whole session by taking stuff away from us. Jerks. So yeah, the classpects are going to be a bit messed up, plz no h8, m8. Until the next chapter, (who knows when that will be?) farewell, mortals.


	9. A Team is Gathered

**======= GAME?**

Nope. Andrew and Conor, then they'll play.

**======= SCREW YOU**

Ok, so Conor had run away from Matthew, Brendan and Andrew on his way to the sewing room where he can grab a blanket for his strife deck… because reasons. Andrew is running after him following Matthew's orders to stop him, but Conor was so far ahead of him he was nowhere in sight. As Andrew runs around a corner he passes a teacher who turns to him.

"Hey!" the teacher shouts, "no running in the halls!" Andrew stops and metalling face palms himself.

"Darn," he says under his breath, "sorry!" he calls behind his shoulder as he continues walking in the direction of the sewing room. Not wanting to get caught again, but still needing to gain ground, he starts speed walking on his original course.

"That was so stupid," a voice says, "why did you stop running?" Andrew looks around, trying to see if someone around him was talking, but there was no one around, he wonders if someone was following him. "No one's following you, you idiot," the voice says again, "but anyone could, I mean, you're moving so slowly! A snail could catch up with you at this rate!" Andrew shakes his head.

"Are you in my head?" the very confused boy thinks, seconds later he is met with a very sarcastic response.

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner!" the voice mocks him, "your prize is… legs! Now use em!"

"Whoa dude," Andrew thinks, "why you gotta be so rude?"

"Because you're barely moving, and you have a job to do! If you won't man up, I'll make you!" Andrew scratches his head as he slightly speeds up.

"You're just a voice in my head, how can you make me do anything?"

"You're such a wimp, I could just use a sterner tone and you'd do whatever I say," the voice replies, "why is that by the way? Do you enjoy being stepped on by your friends?"

"What?" Andrew exclaims in his head, "do my friends really step on me? Carl's bossy to everyone, and Matthew just really wants to play this game. I don't think they're really being that mean to me." The voice seems to groan as well as a voice in one's head can.

"You don't even realize it, now that's just sad!" the voice seems to be getting increasingly irritated, "dude, you need to man up! You're a black belt, you work out every day! And still, you let nerds walk all over you!" Andrew laughs to himself.

"Well yeah," he says, "but I spend just as much time playing video games as I do working out. I'm just as much of a nerd as them!"

"True, half of your friends are black belts, but they're still wimps!" the voice exclaims, "if you really wanted to, you could crush them in one hit! You just need to spend the time to realize your powers, and that's what I'm for! I'm gonna stick with you for your entire journey, and when I'm finished with you, you'll have unlocked your full potential, including the mastery of your brute force." Andrew is about to think back to his voice, but he arrives at the sewing room, Conor walking out, proudly holding up a strife deck allocated with blanketKind.

"You will never stop me! I have to go fast!" Conor shouts as he turns and runs past Andrew in the direction he came from. Despite the daily workouts Andrew did, he was still out of breath.

"Wimp," the voice says simply.

**======= CAN WE SEE WHAT THE TALL BOY WAS DOING?**

Um… ok? Should I make him recap what he was doing on his way to the room?

**======= NO. GO THROUGH IT AGAIN**

Sure, I'll go back to Conor's perspective starting from when he ran out of the computer lab.

"I will do it, don't test me," Conor says as Matthew laughs and begins talking. Conor, however, did not hear what Matthew said, as he was fully aware that Matthew would send someone after him to try to stop him from getting his beautiful blankets, and he wanted as much time as he could before someone tackled him. Life was just a big game to Conor, and he didn't want to be the hero, he wanted to be that one character that everyone thought was so adorable and funny, even though he never accomplished anything in the game.

"Come and get me!" Conor laughed to himself as he rushed to the sewing room, slowing down whenever he thought a teacher would be nearby, but quickly speeding back up after he passed them. Conor loved to go fast, if you were going to do something, do it quickly so you can do other things in less time, and this mentality was reflected in his schoolwork, which in turn were reflected in his marks. "Oh, this is fun before the game even starts!" Conor laughs to himself again, and upon arriving to the sewing room, located conveniently next to the foods room, notices the familiar ding of the washing machine from the next room over. Peeking into the teacher's office that connected the two rooms, he saw the teacher hadn't heard the tone. The teacher turns to him and smiles.

"Hello, Conor," the woman greets him, "can I help you with something?" Conor shakes his head.

"No, I just need to grab the quilt I sewed," he replies, "also, I think the washing machine just went off." The teacher's eyes widen.

"Oh, thank you, Conor, I hadn't noticed," she says as she stands up and goes into the foods room to empty it. Conor returns to his job and finds his cupboard where he had stowed his quilt until he had finished it. Examining it further, he speculated that it was good enough to hand in and to start on the next assignment straight away, if not for the dust all over it form being stored in the cupboard over the weekend. Wishing to clean it, he takes a huge breath in and with a mighty exhale, blows all the dust off the quilt and away from him. Conor, in his haste, almost forgot about allocating his specibus, and if the teacher was still in her office, he would have given it to her, but he remembers and hits himself on the head.

"Wow, I'm really a dumbo," he says as he pulls out his strife deck and shoves in his quilt, allocating blanketKind to it. Proud of his work, Conor turns to the door and walks out, still carrying his strife deck, and as he walks out, he sees Andrew walking towards him. "You will never stop me! I have to go fast!" Conor laughs as he runs past Andrew back to the cafeteria. "Hehe, this is so much fun!" Conor says to himself giddily, "everyone should play this game!" Upon getting closer to the cafeteria, Conor hears familiar voices and begins to speed up, running around a corner to meet up with all of his friends, and crashing into Thomas, sending them both to the ground.

"OW!" Thomas yells, "what the heck?!" Conor jumps back up to his feet.

"Sorry!" Conor yells in his face, "But I had to go fast!" The rest of the group laughs at his response. Conor holds up his allocated strife deck proudly, then pointing at Matthew, says, "now pay me, mortal!" Matthew laughs at the use of his own joke.

"I said I would, so here," Matthew pulls out a penny from his backpack and tosses it to the tall boy, "don't spend it all in one place." The group takes a moment to figure out the joke, then laughs.

"Totally worth it," Conor jokes, "I've always wanted a penny, it's like Christmas in June!" As he says that, Andrew slowly walks in from around the corner, visibly out of breath.

"I command you," he begins, taking a moment to breathe, "to stop!"

"Kay," Conor replies as the rest of the group laughs. Nate speaks up from the back of the group.

"Uh, guys," he says, "Michael and Kobe are already in the cafeteria waiting for us." The eleven other teenagers look at him.

"Are you serious?" Matthew says, confused. Nate nods.

"Yep," he says, "they're just sitting at one of the tables with their computers, they're ready to play." Matthew nods his head.

"Alright everyone," he says, "those of you with weapons, pull them out. We're gonna play a joke on Kobe for making us wait." The others nod and grab their weapons, or in some cases, their bubble wands and blankets. Matthew holds up his fingers, then starts removing them one by one, counting down to the initiation of his plan. As he moves the last down he bursts through the door, a deathly serious look on his face, staring directly at Michael and Kobe, who suddenly stop their conversation and look towards the newly entered group. As they get closer, and Matthew sees the slightly scared look on Kobe's face, he finds it harder to go along with the ruse, he feels like he's about to start smiling and give it all up, but he doesn't. He stays with it the whole way, and as the group arrives at the table Michael and Kobe are sitting at, Matthew puts his hand on the table and looks them dead in the eyes.

"Let's get this game started." Matthew says.

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. I'm on break now, so many more chapters to come for the next two weeks! But I mean, it's Christmas, and although I like writing, it does not take priority. I'm sorry. I'm hoping to upload a lot over the next couple weeks, and I'm really looking forward to the new chapters, where the game will FINALLY start! I hope I've done a well enough job for you to understand the characters a bit better and what they're like, because I'm done with trying to explain them, of course I'll expand on them as the story and session changes, but for now, these are their personalities. Andrew's voice in his head is his version of splintering, I know it's kind of cheating, but I still don't care. Reading through this chapter I see that I made four "gotta go fast" jokes… that's kinda sad… do I need to add an extra disclaimer for that? I will. **(I DON'T OWN SONIC. BUT I STILL GOTTA GO FAST)** Perfect, now I can't be sued. Anyways, probably gonna update within the next couple days, and the game will begin! Until then, farewell, mortals.


	10. A Chain is Decided

**======= NOW LISTEN TO ME AND BEGIN THE GAME IMMEDIATELY**

Kay.

**======= WAIT, REALLY?**

Yeah, everyone met up, we know everyone who's gonna play, might as well get it started.

**======= WOW, ALRIGHT THEN. BEGIN THE GAME?**

You got it. Matthew stares directly into Michael and Kobe's eyes, both of them silenced by Matthew's unusual forceful tone. Kobe slightly glances at Michael who returns the glance, and after a moment, Kobe returns his gaze to Matthew and bursts out laughing.

"Oh kill em!" he howls between his uncontrollable laughter, "it's so adorable when you try to be intimidating!" Matthew, hearing Kobe's infectious laugh, begins laughing himself, unable to continue along with the joke.

"Yeah," he says, "I just cannot be intimidating, can I?" After moments of laughter, the two boys calm down and Matthew turns to the rest of the boys. "So we all ready to play?" They all nod.

"Let's get this over with," Carl says irritably, "I have a class after lunch." Thomas speaks up awkwardly.

"Yeah, um, my laptop died last block," he says sheepishly, "probably should have mentioned that earlier, huh?" Carl waves his hands in the air in distraught.

"Of course it did!" he shouts, "what else would it have done?!" Abhiraj provides a solution.

"You can just go to the computer lab. We'll email you the files and just download them to the school computer that you're using." Thomas nods.

"Sure, that's what I'll do," he says. After exchanging his email with the other boys, he heads off in the direction of the computer lab. The remaining thirteen boys all sit down at the circular table and pull out their computers, opening up the Pesterchum client, adding each other and Thomas to their friends list for communication when they continue the game later. Josiah begins speaking about how to start the game.

"Ok guys," he says, "the files that Matthew sent us has two parts to it, the client and the server files, to play the game, each person needs to set up one of each. We start with someone setting up a server, then the next person connects to them using the client file, then that same person sets up his server file for the next person to connect, and so on. Eventually, the last one of us to set up their server file needs to connect to the first person again."

"What if there was only one person?" Nate asks, "could you play the game alone?" Josiah shrugs.

"Not sure, I was never given any information about changing the rules, I was just given advice for how to play our session." Carl seems extremely frustrated with the hypothetical questions and long-winded explanations.

"Why are we discussing this?!" he shouts, "just start the stupid game!" The others are shocked into silence.

"What a nice guy," Matthew mutters sarcastically as the rest of the group chuckles at his sarcasm. Carl, however, does not.

"I will eat you alive," he threatens, "you know I will."

"Your friendship means a lot to me too," the shorter boy responds sarcastically, making Carl fume with anger, but before he can respond with another threat, Brendan steps in.

"Ok guys, let there be peace, I need to head to a class after lunch too, so it would be nice if we can start this game with minimal pre-game death," he laughs meekly, and after a checking on the two arguing boys and making sure they were calm, he continues, "there, now please continue with your explanation," he looks at Josiah. The black haired boy just shrugs.

"That's about it," he says, "we just need to know who wants to start the chain," Josiah looks around at the members of their group, "anyone?" he asks. A notification on Josiah's already open Pesterchum alerts him to Thomas coming online, changing his focus to their other friend, Josiah opens up a memo and gives everyone access to it. A notification sounds on all of the other twelve boy's computers as they all look at their screens and click on the memo.

**Thomas:** whats this?

**Josiah:** It's a way for you to communicate with all of us at once

**Thomas:** cool

**Josiah:** So, we need to decide who to start the chain to begin the game

**Thomas:** ill do it!

**Thomas:** what do i do?

**Josiah:** Open up the server file from the computer you're using, and wait for the next person to connect to you with the client file

**Thomas:** kk

**Carl:** HURRY UP AND START THE STUPID GAME

**Matthew:** what a r00d d00d

With that, Thomas minimized the chat client and opened the server file, loading it at a painfully slow rate.

"Why does the school wifi suck so much?" Thomas muttered to himself, waiting for the game to load. After what seemed like ages, the Sburb logo flashed on his screen, and he had started the chain.

Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, the others were debating on who would start the game first.

"I gave everyone the files, so I think I should start first," Matthew says, "any objections?" Carl raised his hand.

"We all know I don't want to play this game," he says, "so I say to keep me happy we let me in first, so that I can head to my class and my teacher won't yell at me." Matthew and Carl start bickering over who would be the first to begin the game while Josiah continues to message Thomas through the chat client.

**Josiah:** Almost set up?

**Thomas:** ya, just finished

**Thomas:** wifi sucks so it took forever to open

**Josiah:** That's alright. Matthew and Carl are arguing, they both want to start first

**Thomas:** theyre both idiots, just tell em its open and whoever connects first wins

**Josiah:** On it

"Guys, the servers open," Josiah calls to both of the arguing boys, "Thomas says for both of you to try and connect, and the first person to join wins. GO!" Both boys take a second to realize the challenge that had just been set, and after a moment of figuring it out, they both rush to their computers and begin opening their respective client files.

"No!" Matthew shouts, "lag!" Carl points at him from across the table.

"Ha! Macs," he mocks, "should have gotten a PC, kid!" Just as he says that, karma strikes, as he is given the notification that he needs to forcefully update Windows. Carl yells a long line of swear words as Andrew looks over his shoulder at what happened, and begins laughing.

"Ha! PCs," Andrew mocks him, "should have gotten a mac, kid!" he laughs as he explains what happened with the computer to the other boys, and they all start laughing at Carl. As Carl looks across the table, Matthew is staring at him with a smug look on his face, and his computer showing that he was already connecting to Thomas' server.

"Get wrecked, mate," Matthew says as a nearby teacher walks by the group and points at Carl, beckoning him over. Carl looks incredibly frustrated at Matthew and the others as he turns to walk over to the teacher who begins lecturing him on proper language at school. The other boys continue setting up their chain peacefully.

"I'll help Carl get it," Michael offers, "he probably won't accept help from anyone else, and given the rate his Windows update, he'll have to go in as late as possible."

"He can't really enter last," Josiah says, "because Thomas has already set up what will be the last client, but Carl can go in second-last." Michael accepts the offer. All of the boys begin discussing who the next entry will be with so much enthusiasm that they don't notice the messages being sent to the memo.

**Thomas:** guys?

**Thomas:** what do i do with these machine things?

**Thomas: **am i alone here?

After much debate, Matthew calms the other boys down and recites the order they had decided.

"Ok so," he begins, "Thomas is serving me, I will serve Abhiraj, who will then serve Andrew. Andrew will serve Nate, who will serve Kobe, who will server Conor," Matthew takes a deep breath before continuing the list at a much faster rate, "Conor goes to Ryan, Ryan goes to Isaac, Isaac goes to Josiah, Josiah goes to Patrick, Patrick goes to Brendan, Brendan goes to Michael, Michael goes to Carl," and with one final breath Matthew finishes the list, "and Carl goes to Thomas." A large bang fills the room as a giant box is dropped next to the table the boys were sitting at, followed shortly thereafter by a simple Pesterchum notification.

**Thomas:** fine, screw you guys

**Thomas:** ill figure out what to do with these things myself

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. Yes, it actually happened, I'm done with character exposition, and the plot is actually moving once more. Please, hold the applause. I'm going to try to update one last time before Christmas and get everyone in the Medium before continuing the story after Christmas. I thought this chapter was quite a bit longer than the others, but checking it now, it really isn't, adding in the memos makes the page a lot longer, but with a lot less words. My next chapter where everyone gets in the game will probably be really long, depending on what I can think up to happen to everyone to mess them up and make it longer. This chapter, however, had a fair amount of stuff happen in not a lot of time. Basically the only important thing that I wanted to add in to this chapter was the order of entry, so I didn't really know what else to add in. I'll just make next chapter a bit longer than normal and make a decent ending chapter until after Christmas. Until next chapter, farewell mortals.


	11. A Time is Set

**======= EXAMINE GIANT BOX**

The thirteen boys in the cafeteria look to each other, then to the box with a cylinder-like shape on top of it. Even the teacher lecturing Carl seems distracted by the sudden appearance of the box, allowing Carl to quietly walk back over to his friends, who were trying to decide what to do.

"What's up?" Carl whispers to Michael, who just shakes his head.

"From what the Pesterchum memo says, Thomas was apparently able to create it, and none of us want to go near it." Carl shrugs.

"Matthew apparently connected to him, he should man up and check it out." Michael nods and gets Matthew's attention while the rest of the group continues debating.

"Sup?" he asks.

"You're apparently the great first player of the game," Carl says bitterly, "go over to it, you wimp." Matthew looks at him, then back to the container, then shrugs.

"Alright," he says simply as he begins walking towards it. He walks around the box, wondering what it contains, and puts his hand on it, feeling the cold metal on his flesh before quickly retracting it. The teacher rushes forward.

"Hey!" he shouts, "that could be dangerous, stay away from it!" Carl rolls his eyes back from the table.

"Even the teachers are wimps," he mutters as he stands up, leaving Michael wondering what he was about to. "Move," he says to the teacher as he pushes past him, "I got this." As Carl stands next to Matthew and the machine he starts talking to him.

"What do you think?" Matthew asks Carl, who responds without making eye contact.

"We get it open. See what's inside."

"Ya don't say?" the first boy responds sarcastically, "I meant how?"

"We could always try this," Carl says as he pulls his foot back and with a loud clang kicks the base of the box, which somehow knocks off the top of the cylinder shape, and releases a strange, rapidly blinking sphere. Matthew looks at Carl.

"That'll do it," Matthew says, awestruck as Carl just shrugs. The circle floats in the air momentarily before rushing to Matthew's side who stumbles back slightly. "Whoa there," he says, "don't kill me." The sphere just floats there, continuing to blink at a rapid rate. Matthew looks back at his friends, specifically Josiah, who he assumes will have the most knowledge of what is happening to them. Sadly, Josiah shakes his head.

"No idea," he says, "I woke up before they could tell me what would happen after the first object was placed. The last thing I heard was 'feed it,' so I think you might need to give it something?" Matthew shakes his head.

"What would you suggest? How do I know if it's a vegetarian or not? I don't wanna be insensitive," he jokes. The teacher from before walked over to them.

"I said to stay back!" he yells, "you kids need to listen to the teachers!" Carl rolls his eyes.

"Ok, then you check it out!" he shouts as he pushes the teacher towards the circle. After being pushed and stumbling backwards, the teacher's leg catches on the leg of the table, and he falls backwards into the circle, which completely absorbs him. Everyone in the cafeteria gasps in shock, no one had ever seen something like that, seeing a circle literally consume an entire person. The circle begins blinking faster, then shrinks slightly, before growing larger than it was originally, and in a bright flash of light forcing everyone to look away to prevent being blinded, and as the light died down and everyone looked back at what had become of their teacher, they were met with the same circle, but now with the teacher's face inside it, clenched in an eternal frown of disapproval. Everyone was in a stunned silence, everyone looking from each other to the circle, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, a Pesterchum notification informs everyone of Thomas's presence.

**Thomas:** WTF

**Thomas:** WHAT WAS THAT?

**Thomas:** THAT THING LITERALLY JUST ATE THE TEACHER!

**Josiah:** Didn't you say that you were the one to put the box down?

**Thomas:** YA BUT I DIDNT DO ANYTHING!

**Thomas:** THAT WAS YOU GUYS WHO GOT HIM KILLED!

**Josiah:** Dude, please calm down, he seems to be fine, just now he's inside a circle

**Josiah: **How did you put the box down?

**Thomas:** theres this list of a bunch of things that i can put down

**Thomas:** that thing was called the Cruxtruder

**Thomas:** also from my view point, i can see inside the hole at the top of it

**Thomas:** there's some blue thing in there

**Josiah:** Really?

**Thomas:** ya, its like a stick of some sort

**Josiah:** Wait, you can see us?

**Thomas:** ya, it seems to be centred around matthew tho

**Thomas:** i have this whole interface thing, like im playing a game or something

**Thomas:** which i guess i kind of am lol

**Thomas:** hello?

Josiah told Ryan about the new discovery, and he had leapt from his seat at the table and ran up to the Cruxtruder, jumping on top of it to reach the top.

"The heck?" Matthew calls to him. Ryan reaches inside the hole at the top of the cylindrical part of the Cruxtruder, feeling something inside, he grabs it and pulls it out. It was some form of stone-like texture, examining it in his hand, he shows it to the rest of the group, but they seem to be looking at something else on the Cruxtruder. Turning around, Ryan notices four screens on it, each showing the same thing; a timer counting down to something. Currently, the timer was just counting down from 11:29, and everyone looked at each other.

"Ten minutes?" Ryan half-says, half-asks, the rest of the team shrugs.

"So we have a time limit," Nate says, "that's reassuring." Ryan jumps off of the Cruxtruder, but as he lands he twists his ankle and drops the stone object, which hits the ground and cracks. Ryan is wincing in pain, while the rest of the group is staring at what had just become of the object.

"Dude!" Carl yells, "what if we need that?!" Ryan slowly stands up.

"Oh, sorry that I got injured and dropped it," he responds sarcastically, "how inconsiderate of me. Ow…" he whimpers as he limps back to the table after picking up the object again. It didn't seem to be chipped anywhere, just with a large crack down the centre of it, Ryan puts it down in the centre of the table and sits down, going back to his computer. "You guys figure out what to do, I'll start talking to Thomas as my ankle rests. Josiah, you can start being useful."

"Rude," Josiah says, pretending to be offended. The rest of the group doesn't know what to do to continue. Everyone is making suggestions, but every time a new idea is made, a reason not to do that is said immediately after.

"Maybe we should start setting up the other connections," Abhiraj says quietly, "if we're on a time limit, we may as well do it now." The rest of the team murmurs their agreement, and they begin opening their server and client files from their computers.

**Ryan:** Hey, Thomas

**Ryan:** I went to examine the thing you told Josiah about, and then I fell

**Thomas:** i know

**Ryan:** You did?

**Thomas:** ya, i can see you guys from where i am

**Ryan:** Cool

**Ryan: **Can you hear us?

**Thomas:** nope, i have no audio coming from you guys

**Ryan:** Alright then, we're starting to set up the other connections in the chain, I think you're connecting to Carl's server

**Thomas:** on it

**Thomas:** also, theres a bunch of other machines that i can put down that are like the box thing, should i put them down?

**Ryan:** Uh, sure, I guess

**Ryan:** I'll get one of us to check them out after they set up their connections

**Thomas:** kk

"Ok guys," Ryan says as he gets the group's attention, "Thomas is, apparently, going to put down some more machine things, so when you guys set up your connections, someone should go check it out." The team nods and goes back to their connections. Slowly, each of the members begin to say things like, 'I'm in,' and 'wow, that's cool!' Once everyone had paired up, and opened up their copies of the game, they began to look at their screens.

"I can see us from here," Conor says, "that's so cool!" Carl gets annoyed.

"This is so dumb," he says, "it says I'm connected to Thomas, but I can't see anything!" Josiah looks over.

"No," he says, "you can see the outline of him, I guess it's just really dark in the computer lab."

"Why?" Carl asks, "isn't that, like, bad for your eyesight?" Josiah shrugs.

"Don't judge him," he says as he goes back to his computer, "ok, so do we all have the same screen here? With these buttons and the cursor?" The friends all nod. Another loud clang fills the room once again, quickly followed by two more, as three machine-like objects are placed in the room with them.

**Thomas:** one of these is called the Totem Lathe

**Thomas:** another is the Alchemiter

**Thomas:** last one is the Punch Designix

**Thomas:** these names are so dumb

**Ryan: **Ok, thanks, where did you find these in the HUD?

**Thomas:** i clicked the arrow facing down

**Ryan:** Thanks

Ryan relays the information, and the group begins to place their own copies of the devices and go over to them. Each member, except Ryan, takes time to examine their new devices and begin attempting to open them, the only one making progress being Carl. Carl turns around as everyone else looks at him, he does a face palm.

"You guys can't open you boxes, can you?" Everyone shakes their head as Carl groans. Going around to everyone's Cruxtruder, giving each of them a strong kick and knocking the top off, releasing twelve more circles, who rush to their owner's side.

"What about Thomas?" Kobe asks, "he's as much of a wimp as the rest of us, he'll probably need help." Carl lets out a large groan, and starts walking down the hall angrily.

"Hurry!" Ryan calls after him, "we have seven minutes!" Everyone still in the room begin to discuss what they will feed their circle.

"If it becomes like what it eats, then I want to put something awesome in it!" Brendan says cheerily, "maybe some of my DnD character pages!" After taking a moment to think about what that would mean, he goes along with it completely, and runs to his locker to retrieve them. Patrick, his server player, shakes his head and begins thinking about what he wants to feed his own circle. With a bright flash of light, everyone looks away from the source, as another circle is fed. As they turn back, they hear Isaac groan.

"Wait, no, that was stupid!" he says, "I know what I should have put in, now!" Isaac had prototyped his headphones, leaving his circle containing an image of his headphones. "Can I feed it something else to change it?"

Michael shrugs, "Why not?" he says, "it's probably still hungry." Isaac nods and pulls out his phone.

"This is such a better idea," he says as he tosses his phone towards the headphone circle, which emits another giant flash of light. After the light dims, everyone turns back and sees a new circle, containing a phone connected to headphone inside of it. "Much better," Isaac says.

"Five minutes!" Ryan calls to the group as Carl returns to the cafeteria. Carl looks around, and notices that some of the other people in the cafeteria who did not have a copy of the game were beginning to stare at the players. As he walks up to them, he yells at the top of his lungs.

"GET OUT!" The innocent bystanders scramble to their feet and run to another part of the school. Carl is genuinely happy with his work, and returns to his devices. He decides to examine what Ryan had called the Alchemiter, looking at it, he sees a place that would fit the object he had removed from his cruxtruder. He places the stone object on the pedestal, and the machine examines it, and on the larger pedestal, a green cube appears as Carl grins evilly. "This is how I get my chainsaw," he says to himself, "this will be glorious," he replies.

"Hey guys!" Abhiraj calls from the table, the group looks at him, "we also apparently need to deploy this card thing. It seems to fit into the Totem Lathe." Ryan relays this information to Thomas while everyone a card for their client player, then they each take their card and insert it into the Totem Lathe before turning to Abhiraj again. "Next, it looks like you can strap in this rock thing, which I guess is the totem, to this thing here," Abhiraj led by example as the machine started spinning, changing the once cylindrical totem into a much more advanced shape, sort of like a fancy vase without an opening. The others did the same and Cal continued with the information he had discovered.

"The big, flat thing, the alchemy whatever, if you put the totem on it, you create something with it," he showed the others what he meant by placing his newly carved totem on the smaller pedestal, as a chainsaw was created on the larger pedestal. Carl was genuinely surprised, he had expected to need to do a lot of research or searching before he got his chainsaw, but he would not show this surprise to his friends, they needed to know that he was in control. The others did the same with their totems, and they each created their artifacts.

"I got a candle," Matthew says, "what the heck! I want a chainsaw!" Carl is pleased with Matthew's unhappiness.

"That'll teach him to make fun of me," he thinks. The others begin to complain about their useless items.

"A puzzle?" Josiah wonders.

"A lockbox," Michael thinks, "do I need to get it open? There's no key…"

"A… mirror?" Andrew thinks. But as he gazes into the mirror, he is not looking at himself, but at a demonic version of his face that began talking to him.

"Hey, wimp," it says, "remember me?" It's the voice from inside his head.

"No," Andrew whispers, "not now." The mirror image laughs.

"You're scared of me? Rage is belief! Accept me, and you shall unlock your potential!" Andrew quickly takes the mirror and flips it upside down, he cannot stand to look at himself in such a manner, he does not want to be that person. That would never be him, he was a nice person. Wasn't he? Meanwhile, Brendan has returned and is much further behind on his totem, needing Nate to come over and explain what he needs to do.

"Ok, thanks!" Brendan says happily, "but first," he says, turning to look at this circle, "I need to make something happen." He tossed every last character page he had into the circle, but to his dismay, he the circle did not hold his characters, but the paper it was written on. Thinking about how he could fix this, Brendan ran to the workout room, where they held the CPR dummies. "A body, that's what they need," he thought to himself as he grabbed the closest dummy and ran back to the cafeteria, everyone currently in the gym staring at him oddly. Upon reaching the cafeteria again, he tossed the dummy into the circle, and with a flash of light, he had made his creation. The face of the circle was constantly changing between each of the sketches he had made for his characters. With that job out of the way, Brendan turns back to the totem and follows Nate's instructions while everyone else continues attempting to figure out their artifacts. Josiah it sitting down, trying to solve his puzzle.

"This piece can go here, but theres no room for this piece," he mutters to himself. Most teenage boys don't spend their days playing with puzzles, so Josiah has no idea how to progress.

"Four minutes, guys!" Ryan calls as he examines his artifact, two rings locked together. "What the heck?" he says, "I'm not a magician!"

"Guys?" Conor calls, "help?" Everyone turns to Conor, and sees that he's stuck inside a cage made of the same material as everyone else's artifacts. "It, uh, kinda just 'poof' and went around me. I don't like being trapped, please help!" Conor begins pulling on the bars, but to no avail, he may be tall, but he was thin as a stick. Carl walks over and begins pulling on the bars, and although there is creaking, the bars stay firmly in place, surprising even Carl.

"I got it," he says as he walks back over to his Alchemiter.

"Take your time, I'll just be here, accomplishing nothing," Conor says as he sits down in his cage. Carl returns carrying his chainsaw artifact, and Conor's eyes widen very quickly. "Never mind!" he shouts, "I'm good in here, thanks!" Carl completely ignores him and revs his chainsaw, eager to do this ever since he thought of his strife specibus. Bringing the spinning blades closer and closer to the bars, the second it makes contact, the bars snap easily and the cage completely disappears, turning into some form of dust which starts flying around the room at an incredible pace before flying out the window and rushing around the entire school. Conor just stares at Carl. "Thanks?" Conor says awkwardly. Carl grunts and returns to his Alchemiter and puts his chainsaw back on top of it. Michael calls Carl over.

"Can you maybe help me with my thing too?" he asks his friend. Carl rolls his eyes and goes to retrieve his chainsaw artifact again.

"Actually," Ryan says, "can you help me with mine too?" Carl gets annoyed.

"I can't do everything!" he shouts, despite the fact that he was already cutting the lock on Michael's box, which also turned into dust that started flying around the school, creating a sort of barrier separating the school from the rest of the world. The barrier was thickened when Ryan's rings were cut by Carl's chainsaw. "Before I put this back," Carl begins, "does anyone else need me to wreck their stuff?"

"Can your chainsaw help me find a ball in a ball pit?" Nate asks. Confused, Carl looks over and sees Nate, waist-deep in a pit of green balls.

"The heck?" Carl asks. Nate shrugs.

"There was this one blue ball, and it got dropped in here. I think I need to find it, but the colours are so similar!" Matthew turns away from his candle, still burning down the wick.

"Everyone who finishes their challenge and has already fed their circle thing, help someone else with theirs, got it?" The team nods and goes to work, ether helping someone else or thinking about their circle. Michael thinks for a second, then pulls out his strife deck, still allocated with bookKind.

"This may be against the rules," he says, "but screw it." Michael drops his strife deck and textbook into the circle, creating a circle with a book inside of it. "Ok, who needs help?" he asks. Kobe raises his hand as Michael walks over to him. "Sup?" he asks Kobe. Kobe seems frantically looking around.

"My totem turned into a little bug thing that's flying around everywhere, and I can't find it!" Kobe complains frantically, "and I still don't know what to feed my circle!" Michael provides a solution.

"Ok, you go look for the dragonfly, I'll think of what to feed it, ok?"

"Sure, just hurry!" Kobe says. But as Kobe rushes away, Michael reaches over and grabs the hood of the jacket Kobe was wearing, cause it fall off of his shoulders, but in his rush, Kobe didn't notice.

"Sorry!" Michael says as he tosses in the jacket, creating yet another flash of light, leaving the circle with a jacket for food. Kobe, rushing around, spots a dragonfly resting on Isaac's arm.

"What's this?" Isaac whispers to him, not wanting to disturb the creature.

"That's my totem thing," Kobe replies, "what's up with your arm?" He points to Isaacs arm, which is connected to a computer screen measuring his pulse, which was rapidly slowing down.

"This is mine," he says, "my pulse just keeps getting slower, I need to do something to raise it up." Kobe slowly starts creeping towards the boy and the dragonfly, once he's within arms reach Kobe lashes out and grabs the dragonfly, who immediately begins attempting to fly away, making Kobe's hand buzz. With a flurry of wings, the bug shows an immense amount of strength and begins pulling Kobe with him, slowly raising him into the air.

"Help!" Kobe screams. With one hand, Isaac grabs Kobe's other arm, and with his free hand, grabs the stand his pulse measuring screen is attached to.

"Gotta go fast," Isaac mutters to himself while the bug begins to exert more and more strength, until finally, Kobe, Isaac and the bug are all flying around the room, starting out slow but speeding up incredibly. "Yeah!" Isaac screams as his heart rate begins to climb up, "this is awesome!" Suddenly, Isaac's screen explodes in a puff of dust, which follows the rest of the dust that came before it, starting to surround the school. Isaac looks at Kobe, who returns the eye contact. "Thank you," Isaac says. With that, the dragonfly begins to pump its wings slower, descending the three of them too the ground, and once they are all on the ground, the bug flies out the window and bursts into dust, joining the rest of it. The barrier surrounding the school is almost impenetrable with such a thick layer of dust. The two boys who had just went for a flight rush to their respective circles.

"Three minutes!" Ryan yells, still trying to figure out what to feed his circle with. "Wait," he thinks to himself, "everyone else just gave them random stuff, maybe they really just want food." Reaching into his backpack, he pulls out a bottle of Sprite. "Drink up," he says as he tosses the bottle in and begins hobbling towards any friend that needed his help. The flash of light behind him as he walked forward made him feel like a beast, but he keeps acting cool to keep up the illusion. He stops at Josiah, still trying to figure out the puzzle.

"Help!" Josiah cries. Ryan nods and silently goes to work helping Josiah with the puzzle. Nate, meanwhile, is still desperately looking for the blue ball in the pile of green.

"Someone, help! Please!" Nate calls to his friends, but no one hears him. Having a quiet voice was not always a good thing. Abhiraj walks up beside him.

"I can't help, I still need to figure out my totem!" he says as he holds up a megaphone, "what logical use could this possibly have?" Nate seizes the opportunity.

"Helping me," he says as he grabs the object from Abhiraj. Holding it up to his mouth, he yells louder than he ever had before. "SOMEONE HELP! I CAN'T DO THIS ALONE!" After he finishes his sentence, the megaphone disappeares and flies out the window as more dust. He turns to Abhiraj. "Thanks," he says in his normal quiet voice. Abhiraj nods and runs back to his circle, still waiting to be fed while Isaac rushes to help Nate, diving in the ball pit with him. Abhiraj is desperate for an idea, he knows that they're running out of time, so he reaches into his backpack and tosses the first thing he grabs into the circle. With a flash of light, he looks back to it, seeing that he had fed it a pencil and piece of paper.

"Because why not?" he murmurs to himself, turning to anyone else needing help. Seeing Andrew freaking out about his object, he runs over to him and tries to help. "What's wrong?" he asks Andrew, who rapidly shakes his head as he points to the mirror.

"Get it out of here." Abhiraj nods, not question it, he grabs the mirror and flings it behind him, followed shortly by a flash of light. Turning around, Abhiraj sees that he had fed the mirror to Patrick's circle.

"You what, mate?!" Patrick yells angrily, looking at Andrew and Abhiraj, who quickly run to help someone else. Glancing back at the nearest Alchemiter, Matthew updates everyone on the time.

"One minute!" he yells, "hurry it up!" Josiah and Ryan are frantic, with one piece left, they attempt to locate the only open spot in the puzzle. Finally, glancing near the corner, Ryan notices the opening and grabs the piece from Josiah, slamming it into place as the puzzle bursts into dust. Ryan turns to Josiah.

"Feed it!" he yells as he runs to help Nate. Josiah nods and turns to find his circle, seeing it next to him, but already fed. It had floated to the science room and absorbed both of the school pets, the mouse and the spider. Shaking his head, Josiah mutters to himself.

"Carl's not going to like that," he laughs. Turning to anyone who still needs assistance, Josiah notices Patrick, struggling with a locked door.

"Thirty seconds!" Matthew shouts as Josiah arrives next to Patrick.

"Did you try Carl's chainsaw?" Josiah asks Patrick.

"I don't need Carl," he says, "I'll die before I ask for help." Josiah shakes his head.

"Now that's just sad." Josiah pushes Patrick beside the door, and runs to grab Carl's chainsaw from him. Before Carl can question it, Josiah runs back to the door and slices it clean in half, turning it to dust that flies out the window.

"Twenty!" Matthew yells, still unsure of what to do with his candle that had almost burned out. Ryan runs past Matthew and away from the rest of the group, towards the kitchen area of the cafeteria. "What are you doing?!" Matthew calls to him. Ryan yells back without turning around.

"Wifi dying!" Matthew hears, "can't let the game crash!" Upon arriving at the router, Ryan rips it from the outlet and runs back to Nate, where he tosses him the router. Nate looks at him. "Feed!" Ryan shouts to him. Suddenly understanding, Nate turns behind him and lobs the router to the circle, which absorbs it, releasing a flash of light and filling it with the router. Conor is also desperate for something to feed his circle with. Looking around, he notices a meter stick leaning against nearby wall.

"Gotta go fast," he says as he sprints after it, grabbing it and pushing his foot off the wall to propel himself backwards before tossing the stick like a javelin into his circle.

"GOT IT!" Nate yells as he holds up the barely different ball from the pit, evaporating the entire thing to dust, which flies out the window. Conor glances around.

"Who still needs help?" he wonders as he sees Brendan sitting down with what looks like action figures. As Conor rushes over to him, he calls to him. "What are you doing?!" Brendan looks up.

"Play with me," he says. Conor looks dumbfounded.

"What?!" he shouts.

"Trust me," Brendan replies simply. Conor looks back at everyone else, who are either standing next to Matthew, examining his almost burnt out candle, or checking the Alchemiters.

"five seconds!" Michael yells as Conor sits down and grabs a figure. Brendan smiles at him.

"That's all I've wanted for years," he says quietly, "someone to enjoy these figures with me." Suddenly, they all burst into dust and fly out the window. Both of them, suddenly aware of the situation, glance at each other and ask the same thing in unison.

"What's left?!" they shout, turning around they see Carl picking up his chainsaw and literally shot putting it across the room towards his circle, where Michael is waiting to jump up and dunk it into the circle, feeding it and creating a cloud of dust that flies out of the school and starts to circle it. The dust outside blocking out almost all of the sunlight, making it extremely dark. Andrew yells as he throws the backpack in his hands into the circle next to him.

"One!" Conor and Brendan look at each other in shock, suddenly realizing something.

"Thomas!" Matthew's candle burns out, leaving dust in its wake, which is quickly joined by dust rushing down the hall from the computer lab. Both puffs of dust rush outside and completely block out the sun, with a bright flash of light, the entire school disappears.

**Author's Notes**

Greetings, mortals. WOW that took a long time to write, especially on Christmas Eve. I'm hoping that I didn't miss anything in my haste, I felt like I was on a deadline, just like the characters, so I'm hoping that I covered everyone's prototypes and Cruxite Artifacts. If not, then I'm going to do a TL;DR just below here. If you understand what everyone prototyped and what everyone had to do to get in, you can skip the next part.

**TL;DR Start**

Matthew: Prototyped teacher, entered with a candle burning out

Abhiraj: Prototyped pencil and paper, entered by finding a logical use for megaphone

Michael: Prototyped book and his strife deck, entered by Carl cutting his lockbox

Isaac: Prototyped headphones and his phone, entered by increasing his heart rate

Conor: Prototyped meter stick, entered by Carl cutting his cage

Ryan: Prototyped Sprite (spriteSprite FTW), entered by Carl cutting his locked rings

Brendan: Prototyped Dungeons and Dragons character sheets and a mannequin, entered by playing with toys with Conor

Josiah: Prototyped mouse and spider, entered by solving a puzzle with Ryan

Patrick: Prototyped Andrew's mirror artifact, entered with Josiah cutting his door

Nate: Prototyped wifi router, entered by finding a specific ball in a ball pit

Andrew: Prototyped his backpack, entered by throwing his artifact into Patrick's sprite

Carl: Prototyped his chainsaw artifact, entered by prototyping his chainsaw artifact

Kobe: Prototyped his jacket (Michael's idea), entered by flying with Isaac by dragonfly artifact

Thomas: Unknown what he prototyped, or how he entered, but the dust coming from the computer lab showed that he did enter with them

**TL;DR End**

Even the TL;DR is long! Sorry, it's Christmas Eve, I just wrote over 5000 words, the game will actually start next chapter. Merry Christmas, and farewell, mortals.


	12. A Game is Played

**======= PLAY**

As the timer reaches zero, the school bell rings, but no one is heading to class. Everyone in the school had felt the sudden rumbling of the school, and they are now searching for the cause. The boys slowly begin to stand up after having fallen over from the disappearance of the school, and they notice the odd light coming from outside. Just before entering, the light outside had continued dimming with the destruction of each artifact, but now the sky was bright as day. Matthew slowly stands up and walks over to the window, waits a bit for his eyes to adjust to the light, and stares at the view before him, with large white letters floating in the sky.

Land of Literally Everything and Frogs, they say. The school itself seems to be perched on a mountain of sorts, looking down on a valley below which seems to have an incredible quantity of completely random items. Off in the distance, Matthew notices what looks to be another valley parallel to the first, but the parallel valley seems much darker than the one the school is sitting on. Both valleys also appear to be infested by small, pitch-black creatures that did not seem to have many defining features. Matthew turns back to check on his friends, where Josiah, Carl and Abhiraj were apparently knocked out from the teleportation, the other boys that are checking on them determine they are fine, just unconscious in a sleep-like state.

"Uh, guys?" Michael says nervously as he points to the previously fed circles, who have begun blinking much more rapidly. The boys look at each other nervously, unsure about what may happen to them, when suddenly, the circles separate from their contents, becoming two separate entities. One of the parts from each player's circle fly to their respective player's side, while the other part from each fly out the window and split again, this time into both a black and a white version of the original part, before the black flies downwards and the white flies upwards. Each boy looks at the new circle that flew beside them, and they begin to glow brighter and brighter until the teenagers cannot stand to look at them anymore and are forced to cover their eyes until the light finally fades. The boys that are still conscious look back to the source of the lights and are no longer met by circles, but by strange humanoid ghost-like creatures with similar qualities to what they had fed their respective circle, some even attempt to communicate with their player.

"What happened?" Matthew's ghost asks in the exact same tone of the teacher who had been forced into the circle by Carl. Matthew just stares in awe, unable to believe what had just happened. "I feel so good!" the teacher says happily, "and so smart! I feel like I know everything!" The teacher is clearly enjoying his transformation. Matthew speaks to him nervously.

"What are you?" he asks, wishing to understand what had happened. The teacher thinks for a moment then nods.

"I think," he begins, "I'm a Sprite, TeacherSprite, to be exact. Apparently, I'm supposed to teach you about this game using my enhanced knowledge, which should be no problem for me. After all, it's my career to teach young and stupid minds things they can't possibly understand." Matthew sighs, he knows that this will not be a fun experience with the teacher constantly forcing him to learn. "You there, boy," the teacher says again, pointing to Matthew, "you should be taking notes on this, don't you look at me like that! I will give you detention!" Matthew rolls his eyes, reaches into his backpack and pulls out a roll of tape. "I demand to know what you're doing, young man!" Matthew walks over to him with a strip of tape in his hands, and covers the teacher's mouth with it. In a glowing beam of light, the sprite absorbs the tape, the tape now permanently mixed with the teacher, preventing him from speaking.

"Much better," Matthew mutters. The other boys are attempting to interact with their sprites, but to very little success, most of them had fed their sprites inanimate objects, making it very difficult, or even impossible, to converse with them. Matthew organizes the remaining conscious boys to take their sprites and check around the school and ensure that nobody else had been injured in the teleportation, while he goes to check the computer lab for Thomas.

"Ryan," Matthew says, "you stay here, we can't let anything happen to the knocked out guys." Ryan protests.

"What if those creepy, black things outside show up?" Matthew shrugs.

"Blow bubbles at them," he jokes as he runs in the direction of the computer lab, but as he leaves the cafeteria and turns the corner towards the computer lab, he discovers that the entire hallway connecting the computer lab to the rest of the school looks to have been forcibly torn from the school. Looking out the new hole, Matthew sees a mountain in the distance, much darker than the one they seem to be on. Looking at the mountain, Matthew notices a building at the same approximate height of the school, resembling the vague shape of the computer lab. Upon further inspection, he sees a hole in the wall of the lab which would likely fit perfectly together with the hole in the school. Returning to the cafeteria with Ryan and his SpriteSprite, along with the three unconscious boys and their PageSprite, ChainsawSprite and MouseSprite, Matthew grabs his computer and attempts to contact Thomas.

**Matthew:** Thomas?

**Thomas:** yo

**Matthew:** you ok?

**Thomas:** i think so

**Thomas:** where are you guys?

**Thomas:** the computer lab was separated from the rest of the school when i burned that book

**Matthew:** book?

**Thomas:** yeah i was watching you guys, and i did what you did

**Thomas:** i took out my totem, put it and the card in the Totem Lathe, and it gave me a book

**Thomas:** it was supposed to be some diary or something, and it kept shoving itself in my face, but i felt wrong reading it

**Thomas:** but i wasnt strong enough to rip the hardcover book, so i just took some loose wires and lit it on fire

**Matthew:** i guess that's… some way to solve it…

**Matthew:** what did you feed your sprite?

**Thomas:** the circle thing?

**Matthew:** ya

**Thomas:** i put in a computer mouse, then it seemed like it was still hungry, so i put the entire computer in it

**Matthew:** have you seen outside yet?

**Thomas:** ya, theres like these two mountains and two canyons

**Thomas:** mines really dark, and the other seems really bright

**Matthew:** we're on the other one

**Thomas:** wo, can you come get me?

**Matthew:** we'll try

**Matthew:** also, there were these weird black creature things on the ground, and they seem like the level 1 enemies, so be ready to fight them

**Thomas:** but josiah never gave me a weapon card thing!

**Matthew:** yeah, we were a bit short, you and Abhiraj don't have one

**Matthew:** k, i'll send someone after you

**Thomas:** ty

**Thomas:** but i cant go through the game without a weapon

**Matthew:** i'll see if someone can make you one, till then, wait for someone to show up

**Thomas:** kk

Carl slowly opens his eyes, unsure of what happened. He seems to be in a small, purple room, wearing purple pyjamas of a similar shade. He stands up, he appears to have been sleeping on a bed, the last thing he remembers was panicking to begin the game before the timer ran out, but he has no idea of what's happening now. The room has windows, and he looks out the nearest one, seeing an entire planet deep below him, he is trapped in a tower. Looking up, he sees that there is no sky, but darkness and stars, even some asteroids, and a dark realization comes upon him. He was in space. Frantically looking around, trying to find a way down, he hears a snickering behind him, which he quickly turns to face, seeing Josiah's face sitting on the windowsill of the second window in his room.

"Hi there," Josiah says happily, "how are you?" Carl shakes his head angrily.

"No," he says, "no no no, screw this, screw you, where am I?" Josiah spreads his hand behind him.

"Welcome to Derse!" He spread his hands too far back, and he begins falling backwards, out of the tower. Carl attempts to rush at him to grab him, but Josiah falls, when slowly, he floats back up to the window, laughing. "Ha! You should have seen your face!" he says in between his hysterical laughing, "you thought I was going to die!" Carl clenches his fists.

"If you don't stop joking around, you WILL be!" Josiah laughs again.

"Dude, you don't even know how to fly yet! You can't get me!" Carl looks at his own feet, they are firmly planted on the floor, while Josiah was easily floating just outside his tower, not grabbing onto anything.

"How?" Carl asks, confused, "what is this place?" Josiah shakes his head before responding.

"I told you, this is Derse, this is our dream moon. Whenever we sleep, we wake up here, and we can do whatever we want! Isn't it great?" Carl has a million questions.

"Why haven't I been here before? I sleep all the time!" Josiah shrugs.

"Everyone needs to do something to develop themselves before they wake up," he explains, "maybe for you, it was that you put aside your differences with you friends and actually helped them with something."

"Everyone?" Carl asks, "there's more people?" Josiah nods eagerly.

"Oh yeah, everyone who's going to play Sburb with us has a dream self. They all live in towers like this." Carl groans.

"Even Matthew?"

"Well…" Josiah begins, "technically yes, but I haven't seen him yet. There's another moon like Derse, it's called Prospit. Half of us live on Propsit, the other half on Derse." Carl nods.

"Can you show me everyone who's here?" Josiah positively beams with happiness.

"I would love to!" Josiah says as he grabs the larger boy's arm, pulling him out the window to fly with him. After spending some time teaching him to fly, Josiah leads him to the other towers which contain Patrick, Nate, Andrew, Michael, Kobe and Thomas, all of them asleep, shaking or muttering while they did so.

"What's wrong with them?" Carl asks. Josiah shrugs.

"I told you, they need to develop as a person before they wake up. They're having trouble sleeping."

"So everyone's asleep right now? In the real world, I mean."

"I dunno," Josiah says as he shrugs, "our dream selves wake up whenever we're asleep, but when you haven't woken up here yet, you're always like this." Carl's mouth hangs open.

"Does that mean we're asleep right now?!" he says, clearly distraught at the idea. Josiah nods. Carl shakes his head. "That means that Matthew's probably leading the group! We need to get back to Earth, how do we wake up?" Josiah shrugs once more.

"I usually set an alarm for myself whenever I fall asleep so I don't spend too much time here, but I didn't get a chance to this time. Instead of hurrying back to Earth, let's just keep exploring around here for a bit, I can show you the royalty, as long as we keep quiet. I think they don't like us, but I have no idea why." Carl accepts the idea of visiting the royalty, but still worries about him not being in charge of the team on Earth. Carl hears a very loud, and very deep muttering coming from the sky, and he starts frantically looking around, trying to find the source of the noise.

"What the heck?!" Carl shouts. Josiah tells him to be quiet before he explains.

"Those are the Horrorterrors," he explains, "they're how I knew about the game before we played it. They whisper us advice about our session while we're awake here. Just try to listen to them and you'll learn a lot from them." Carl slowly nods, trying to understand what is happening to him from playing a video game. Josiah continues the tour around the moon, ending at the throne room, where the black queen was sitting on her throne, toying with her ring. Josiah pokes Carl and points to the queen. "She's the queen," he whispers, "the king is fighting on the Battlefield, up th-" he points to sky, then stops, mid-sentence. Usually, Josiah was used to looking up and seeing a three by three chessboard, but now the Battlefield was much different. A giant planet with crazy black and white creatures on it, brutally assaulting one another, while a giant white structure surrounds the entire planet.

"What's up?" Carl whispers to Josiah, seeing the awe in his face, "is that not supposed to be there?" Josiah shakes his head, then turns back to the queen in the throne room. She continues toying with her ring, then slowly slides it on her finger, drastically changing her appearance. Wires, spider legs and a mouse tail litter the bottom half of her body, while the top half wears a giant jacket connected to a backpack, her many arms carrying various items, including a chainsaw, a book, a meter stick and a pencil, and her face seems to reflect whatever she looks at. Meanwhile, her entire upper body seems to constantly shift between body types, sometimes human, sometimes small like a dwarf, occasionally huge like an orc, but the entire time, she seemed to slide around and drip some form of liquid, as if the entire spectacle was just an illusion using water. Josiah grabs Carl's arms and flies away.

"The ring, I didn't know what they meant, but this is bad," Josiah mutters to himself as they fly away.

"What's going on, Josiah?" Carl asks, clearly concerned for both his friend's, and his own, life. Josiah shakes his head.

"The Horrorterrors, they told me once that the ring would be extremely dangerous, and that I should never mess with the queen, but it never seemed special to me. She's worn it before, but she never changed, she just always seemed disappointed whenever she put it on and waited for something. She knew that she would inherit the powers, but I didn't." Carl is completely confused at this point.

"Explain, please," he says, "calm down, and explain everything." Josiah sighs but cannot explain.

"Go back to your tower, try to wake up," he says, defeated, "we should try to help the others. Let's just hope our bodies are here when we get back." Carl nods gravely and flies back to his tower, closes his eyes, and wakes up, returning to Earth.

**Author's Notes:**

Greetings, mortals, and happy new year! I wanted to upload this chapter a lot earlier, but the holidays are so busy, and I go back to school tomorrow, so I'll be trying to go back to my usual schedule of three updates per week. I've been writing little snippets of this chapter when I can, so I hope that the events flow smoothly between one another. I'm excited to have finally started the game now, and I can't wait until the fun part of the game actually starts, this was mainly to introduce the moons, and to tell you who was on each moon. That, and to introduce the land, LOLEAF, and yes, there is a reason why there is two valleys and mountains, and why one is dark and one's light, but that won't be explained yet. Maybe next chapter, maybe later, I don't know, when it comes up, I'll explain it. Until next time, farewell, mortals.


	13. A Sprite is Prototyped

**======= ABHIRAJ: DREAM**

Abhiraj rubs his head, unsure of what just happened, he looks around and seems to be in a bright, yellow room, wearing pyjamas matching the colour of the rest of the room. As he stands up he literally floats around the room, moving from the objects in the room to the windows overlooking the golden land below the tower he seems to be held captive in. Spending some time to test out his floating ability, Abhiraj becomes confident in his ability to control it as he steps on the windowsill before jumping out and floating to the ground slowly. Looking around, Abhiraj notices six other towers similar to the one he had escaped from, and as he peaks from window to window, he sees sleeping copies of most of his friends, plus Matthew's friend that he had invited to play the game, who is just sitting at a desk with his back turned away from the window. Brendan seems to be constantly switching his view from a piece of paper in front of him to a wide variety of books surrounding him, some on the desk with him, some on the floor around him.

"Ok, now a daily and a utility…" Brendan mutters to himself as he checks a book next to him. Abhiraj awkwardly speaks up.

"Hello?" he whispers, barely audible. Brendan gives no indication that he heard the younger boy, so Abhiraj floats over to him and lightly taps his shoulder as Brendan instantly jumps up and turns around, clearly surprised to be disturbed. Meanwhile, on Earth, Brendan instantly collapses and falls asleep in the cafeteria with the other boys.

Carl opens his eyes to see Abhiraj and Josiah beside him, Josiah slowly opening his eyes, and the other ten players of their game, minus the three of them and Thomas, pointing at the hallway with a look of pure despair on their faces. Carl jumps up and runs to the hallway, his chainsaw ghost floating behind him, eagerly waiting to be prototyped again. As Carl turns the corner to the computer lab, he is met face to face with a giant Ruby Giclops with a mirror in place of his face, wielding a massive scythe. Carl stumbles before stopping in front of the beast, who glares back at him before raising its scythe and swinging it at Carl, who jumps backwards, landing on his butt, but narrowly avoiding the sharpened blade. The scythe easily swings through the wall beside the giclops, sending much debris down the mountain the school is perched on before the underling pulls the scythe back, preparing to strike again. Michael rushes from the cafeteria to Carl's side, helping him up and trying to take him back to the cafeteria where the other boys were staring in awe at Carl's bravery and stupidity, but Carl pushes Michael back in the direction of the others.

"If I'm going to die," Carl begins, gravely, before looking back to the giclops, fire in his eyes "then I'm at least going to cause some damage first." Carl looks beside him to the chainsaw ghost floating patiently beside him, laughs, then grabs it, releasing a giant flash of light before the sprite becomes second-tiered prototyped with Carl. The boys turn away to protect their eyes, and the giclops itself even ceases its advance on the once-innocent boy, who now stood before the giclops as a full-power sprite wielding a cruxite chainsaw. Carl laughs to himself, "perfect," he says as he revs his chainsaw, now a physical part of him, before advancing on the underling in front of him. "YOU WANNA DANCE?" Carl shouts at the monster as he floats towards it, "THEN LETS DANCE!" Carl rushes forward, bringing the chainsaw up and slicing cleanly through the giclop's body, instantly killing it and bursting it into grist and a scytheKind specibus. Carl lets out an incredible battle roar as the other boys stare in awe at his newfound strength, when suddenly, Brendan inexplicably collapses on the floor, unconscious. Half the boys rush over to him to make sure he's alright, while the other half surround Carl, asking him what happened, but Carl has adrenaline pumping through his sprite-body, and flies out the hole the giclops had just made, spiralling up to the sky, laughing all the way. "YEAH!" Carl screams as he suddenly turns and dives back down towards the school at an incredible speed, stopping as he returns to the side of all of his friends.

"What was that?!" Matthew shouts, "that was amazing!" Carl puts on a smug look, at least now Matthew knew that he was the best out of all of them.

"Awesome, that's what it was," Carl replies cooly.

"How does it feel," Michael asks, "being a sprite?" Carl just laughs.

"It's incredible," he begins, "I feel powerful, and so smart! I understand so much about this game now, but I also know that I'm not supposed to tell anyone directly. It's weird, it's like…" Carl begins waving his arms around, making vague hand motions, "I dunno!" Nate emerges from the back of the group.

"Guys," he says, "go check in with the others, leave me to talk to Carl, alright?" The teens reluctantly skulk back to the other members of their team as Nate turns back to Carl. "You want to tell people, don't you?" Carl nods. "But you feel like you shouldn't, right?" Carl nods again.

"Well, I mean, there are some people that I just don't want to tell anything," Carl replies, "like Matthew. Because really, just screw him." Now it's Nate's turn to nod.

"Who would you feel the most comfortable telling?" Carl replies instantly, already having his best friend in mind.

"Michael."

"Understandable," Nate says as he walks over to Michael, taps him on the shoulder and points to Carl, and Michael walks over to him.

"You ok?" Michael asks upon arriving at Carl's side.

"Never been better," Carl says, "I really need to tell someone about this intense power, but I know that I shouldn't." Michael shrugs.

"Are you gonna tell me, or not?" Carl thinks hard, then nods reluctantly.

"This game is so much bigger than we thought it was, Michael," he begins, "we're essentially going to war, but not until we solve the mysteries of this land." Michael nods, trying to understand.

"Ok, I assume this will take some time to explain," Michael responds, "is there any time that could be better used to explain this to me?" Carl thinks.

"I don't really know a lot about self-prototyping, but I'm going to consider it dying. Hopefully, that means that while I'm working up here with you guys, dream-me can be doing work on Derse, which you'll learn about soon, I hope. If you can find out how to wake up, you can catch up with me there, and I'll try to explain." Michael nods and the two of them return to the others.

"What's up with Brendan?" Michael asks, pointing at the unconscious Brendan who has been picked up and placed next to the still-sleeping Abhiraj. Carl and Josiah exchange a look, silently debating whether or not to tell the others about the moons. Josiah steps forward.

"They're sleeping," he says before explaining further, "this is how I get all my information ahead of time, whenever you fall asleep, your dream-self is supposed to wake up on one of these two moons, Prospit or Derse. So far, Carl and I have been the only Derse dreamers to wake up, but if Brendan and Abhiraj just randomly fell asleep like we did, then they've probably woken up on Prospit. From what I've been told, you need to face something about yourself that you don't like, and after you do, then you can wake up."

"So what's up with these dream-selves?" Matthew asks, "what do they do?" Carl takes over Josiah's explanation.

"Dersites get huge monster-beasts to give them advice, Prospitians can look at clouds and see the future, past and present." Matthew nods.

"Cool," he says, "so we just need to become better people to wake up?" Carl shrugs.

"More or less," he says nonchalantly, "so I'm going to assume that means you're staying asleep." Matthew looks at him with a smug grin.

"I'm beginning to sense some tension," he counters sarcastically, "but I won't hold it against you, we can't all be hyper-intelligent super chainsaws." Carl cracks his neck and floats over to Matthew, very intimidating.

"You wanna go?" Carl whispers to him, pointing his weapon at the boy, "you saw what I did to that underling, you'll be like a toothpick for me." Matthew holds up his hands in piece, but still holding his smug look.

"I'm so sorry," he says sarcastically, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Nate hits Matthew's arms.

"Stop," he whispers to him as Matthew just shrugs.

"Ok guys," Matthew says calmly, "as I was explaining before that ogre thing showed up, Thomas is stuck on that mountain over there, we need to send someone over to protect him and everyone else in the computer lab. Anyone wanna volunteer to split up?" Isaac raises arm.

"I'll go," he says, "but what will you guys do?"

"We can't really leave everyone else here," Kobe says, "we need someone to protect the school, right?" The others nod, but no one wants to stay behind with guard duty. Ryan scowls.

"I'll stay," he says, clearly dejected, "you guys have fun." Suddenly feeling guilty, Kobe speaks up.

"I'll stay too," he says, "we can't leave Ryan alone when he's in charge of hundreds of lives," he jokes as the others laugh.

"Ok," Matthew says, "so we have people on both mountains, so we should split in two groups to explore both valleys. Complaints?" No one says anything. "Great," he continues, "who wants to go with me?" Conor, Andrew and Patrick move to his side as Matthew looks at the remaining four players, Carl, Michael, Josiah and Nate. "You guys wanna go to the other valley?" They all nod. "Got it, let's go team!" Everyone takes time to prepare for the journey before Isaac heads in the direction of the other mountain, Carl's group leaves for the valley parallel to the other mountain, and Matthew's team head down the mountain to the adjacent valley, while Ryan and Kobe send them off. Moments after the others leave, Brendan and Abhiraj begin to stir as Ryan and Kobe return to the cafeteria.

"What happened?" Abhiraj asks as he stands up, suddenly in an empty room. Ryan explains the separation of the group and Abhiraj shakes his head. "That's so bad," he says, "really really bad."

"Why?" Kobe asks. Abhiraj continues shaking his head as he explains.

"We saw it in the clouds, giant, black ogre things, on their way to the other mountain and attacking Isaac. He can't make it, he's tough, but he can't. We need to go save him." Brendan has now also stood up, and is looking at Kobe.

"Kobe, you also need to go after Matthew's team," he says, "it's crucial to how things play out, trust me. You need to be their to deal with Patrick, he's fine now, but he will become unstable, and you need to talk to him." Kobe just looks at him, dumbfounded.

"Patrick's going to go crazy, so I need to talk to him?" Brendan nods.

"Ok, it sounded better in my head, but you definitely need to be their, trust me." Kobe looks at Ryan.

"You gonna be ok on your own?" Ryan punches him jokingly.

"I'm not that much of a wimp, hurry up and get ready to go." While the others are preparing to leave, Brendan sneaks out of the cafeteria and goes to the now decimated hallway where the giclops had been. Looking under piles of ruby and build grist, Brendan finds what he's looking for, the scytheKind specibus.

"Perfect," he says to himself as he grabs it and allocated it to his strife deck, giving him a smaller version of the scythe the giclops had attacked with. "Or as one of my characters would say; Jolly good, fellows! Haha." After spending a moment reminiscing one of his favourite roleplaying personas, he returns to the cafeteria and meets up with the other three. "Ready to go?" he asks Abhiraj, who nods in response. The two of them and Kobe leave Ryan behind and head off in their respective destinations, all three with a mission on their mind.

**Author's Notes:**

Greetings, mortals. Yes, Carl is a sprite now. Yes, he is now literally part chainsaw. Yes, he is still a bit of a jerk. And yes, I am separating the party again, please don't hate me. I wanted to update this chapter yesterday, but due to computer problems and distracting video games, I wasn't able to, I'm sorry. I hope I can make it up with the next few chapters I update, I'm going to be adding quite a few interesting plot twists, so you have something to look forward to. The little excerpt at the beginning of the story with Brendan and Abhiraj on Prospit is kind of a hint to Brendan's classpect, him being the only one to be awake, but too distracted to do anything. Seems almost similar to another character from Homestuck (hint hint). Anyways, that's really all this chapter was for, waking up Brendan, making Carl a sprite and splitting up the party again. Hopefully there will be another chapter tomorrow, but until then, farewell, mortals.


	14. A Battle is Fought

**======= KOBE: PURSUE YOUR FRIENDS**

As Kobe rushes down the mountain he begins to see the vague shapes of his friends much farther down, who only occasionally stop to fight any underlings that come near them. Kobe, lacking a strife deck, is forced to avoid fighting at all, making him take much longer than he wants to catch up with the group below him to apparently protect them from Patrick's imminent anger issues.

"Could have easily just got him a therapist," Kobe mutters to himself, "could have stayed at the school with Ryan and the sprites." As Kobe runs down the mountain he sees Matthew's group get ambushed by four large underlings, all wielding large, blunt objects. One holding a tree, another lifting a car over its head, a third carrying a large block of cement, likely stolen from the wreckage of the school, and the final carrying a wooden meter stick. Kobe sees Matthew's group turn around to face the ogres attacking them, and those with a strife specibus retrieve their weapons, Matthew's bike chain, Conor's blanket and Patrick's prop sword. "Well, they're dead," Kobe thinks to himself as he speeds down the last stretch of mountain to reunite with his friends. Meanwhile, Matthew swings his chain beside him as he sizes up the four enemies.

"You guys ready?" Matthew asks his three companions.

"I don't have a weapon!" Andrew shouts, "what do I do?" Matthew shakes his head.

"This is the Land of Literally Everything and Frogs! Find something, and use it!" Andrew starts frantically looking around the various objects nearby the group, at first, not seeing anything of use.

"Come on, idiot," Andrew's voice in his head mocks him, "something useful has to be here nearby, use your freaking eyes." Andrew shudders, he remembers the face he had seen in the mirror, showing the monstrous form of himself. Suddenly, a glint of light, Andrew looks at the source and sees a rusty axe lying among a pile of DVDs. "Hurry!" the voice shouts to Andrew as he scrambles towards it, grabbing it and shoving it into his strife deck, allocating it with axeKind. Turning back to his friends, Andrew sees that Patrick doesn't seem to be helping the other two fight, Matthew and Conor are forced to avoid the large underling attacks, not given any time to counter.

"Patrick!" Conor shouts, "what the heck? Help!" Patrick just grunts and turns away. Andrew runs up to him.

"What are you doing?" Patrick shoves him off and pushes him towards the other two.

"Screw yourself," Patrick says in a cold tone. Andrew just stares at him, mouth agape, shocked that anyone could be that cold, especially the friend he had known since their first days of high school.

"Behind you!" Andrew hears Matthew shout, and turns around to see the meter stick ogre rushing at him, Andrew narrowly jumping out of the way at the last second before drawing his weapon.

"Yes. Kill," the voice tells Andrew, who shakes his head, he doesn't want to hurt innocent creatures, but in a case of self defence, he was taught to fight back. He raises his axe above his head and brings it down towards the ogre, coming down hard on its arm, causing it to howl in pain before bring up its meter stick and whacking it across Andrew's face, knocking him to the ground and stinging his face. Andrew wishes to cry out in pain, but he cannot bring himself to. The ogre raises his other arm to bring the stick down on Andrew again, ready to finish him off, a sickening smile on its crooked face as Andrew looks down to the ground, ready for the blow to come down on him.

"No!" Andrew glances behind him to see the tall, blond figure of Conor charging at the ogre, blanket pulled out, ready to charge it. As Conor collides with the beast, he stretches his arms wide as he slides between the ogre's legs, allowing his fabric to wrap around, and with a mighty tug, he trips the ogre, bringing it crashing to the ground with a loud scream. "Get up!" Conor yells at Andrew, who momentarily had lost his focus, bring his axe up high above his head.

"Kill," the voice in his head says as he brings the axe down on the ogre's skull, easily bursting the creature into a large amount of grist. Andrew pants and looks around for Matthew, currently fighting off the other three ogres, but desperately failing.

"Help!" he calls, "I can't do this forever!" Suddenly, a call from behind the remaining three underlings alert the group to Kobe's presence.

"Guys!" Kobe yells, distracting the ogres and allowing Matthew to bring his chain up and whip it across the backs of all three of them, making them wince in pain before turning back to him and losing their focus on Kobe, who runs past them and rushes to Patrick's side. "What is wrong with you?" he asks as Andrew and Conor run to Matthew's side to hold off the beasts. "You're out friends, and you're just letting them die out there," Kobe explains, "why?" Patrick grunts and turns away from the asian. Kobe puts a hand on his shoulder and speaks much more softly, "you trust us, don't you?" Facing away from Kobe, Patrick raises his head and stares off into the distance, becoming aware of what he was actually doing.

"What am I doing?" Patrick mutters to himself as he draws his blade and sprints to the side of the other three, the others look at him proudly.

"Thank you," Matthew says before turning back to their threats, "let's do this!" The four boys rush at the now outnumbered ogres and attack them brutally, decimating them in a relatively short battle, leaving most of the boys panting for breath, except for Conor, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the exhilaration.

"That was great!" he shouts, "can we do it again?" The others laugh at him and shake their head.

"We can't all have the energy to run at top speed all the time," Patrick says, "do you think we should head back to the school now? I don't know if I might get one of my mood swings again and be unable to help." Matthew nods.

"Yes, lets go back to the school, we need a break." The boys begin their long trek up the mountain, Conor constantly pulling ahead and insisting they keep up with him. With few underlings bothering them on the way up the mountain, they make significantly better progress going up the mountain than they did on the way down, and upon arriving at the school, they are met with a shocking sight.

**Author's Notes:**

Greetings, mortals. This chapter was supposed to be updated yesterday, and be a bit longer, but I couldn't get around to working on it as much as I wanted to, but then again, this is still approximately the same length as my earlier chapters where the party was split up, so please don't judge me. But this was kind of an important chapter, I mean, Patrick now realizes that he has uncontrollable mood swings, and the first to is admitting you have a problem. To be honest, I need some things to fill up my story instead of just having nonstop plot in every chapter, so I'll probably be doing a few more of these "filler chapters." But yeah, I'll still update a chapter sometime later this week, I feel like I ripped you guys off by uploading this chapter later, so I'm sorry for that, but I will make it up to you with another chapter, where it won't be filler, but actual important information! Farewell, mortals.


	15. A Traveller is Killed

**======= ISAAC: ADVANCE**

Isaac continues to advance, just like he's been doing for the past five minutes, occasionally stopping to stab some imps with his sticks. From a fair distance away, two figures stand idly, waiting to complete their mission.

"I remember this like it was yesterday."

"I've basically lost all sense of time, and I'm the freaking time player!"

"Happens. So you're gonna go back and scratch after this?"

"Yep. My job was just to drop you off, stable time loops, you know?"

"Not really, I'm just one of the lowly breath players, I don't understand your strange time shenanigans." The other figure shrugs.

"I don't think I do either. Just be happy that you have a decent outfit to go along with your breaths."

"It wasn't that bad."

"I wear a freaking dunce cap! And frills!" The second figure snickers at the memory of the one time he saw the time player's outfit before he permanently changed out of it. "Shut up," the first figure continues, "I'm heading back, remember to remind Abhiraj and go through everything that we did the first time. But make sure you stop me, I kinda doomed us all."

"I know, I know. Now go, you've got a universe to reset."

"Yeah… Sorry about that by the way."

"Hm?"

"I dunno, it's like, you always seemed like you wanted to be the hero, and you could have been. But I kinda messed it up for you." The second figure shakes his head and snickers.

"I wouldn't have been the hero," he explains, "I just kept leaving you guys to go off and do my own thing."

"I dunno," the first figure responds, "sometimes that makes the best hero." Shaking his head, the second figure pushes him playfully.

"Just go kill our world. You have the other needleKind, right?" The first figure nods.

"Yep, good luck, Isaac." The other figure nods as the time player returns to their shared timeline as Isaac positions himself to watch the unfolding event, but still be in a good enough position to burst into action for when the imminent problem arises. Further away, Isaac continues to walk along the mountain range, finally reaching the gap between the two and starting to head uphill, towards the torn-away section of the school. Abhiraj and Brendan run towards Isaac, who is completely unaware of the danger he's about to face. The distant figure begins to mutter to himself.

"Don't call for me, that will just distract me," he whispers as he watches the two boys run down the mountain towards this timeline's version of himself.

"ISAAC!" they call, triggering the distant figure's memories of this moment, but being forced to restrain himself for the sake of the timeline.

"Stable time loops," he whispers to himself. Isaac turns around to look for the source of the noise calling his name, and as he does, a hulking giclops emerges from around the bend of the mountain wielding an equally giant chainsaw. The giclops extends his leg and kicks Isaac backwards, where he lands with a thud against the mountain. "Almost time…" the figure whispers to himself as he begins to stalk along the rim of the mountain, ready to approach the beast from behind. Isaac, still conscious, but unable to move, watches the giclops advance towards the now vulnerable boy. Abhiraj and Brendan rush to Isaac and, feeling guilty for causing him this much pain, Brendan pulls out the scythe from his strife deck and approaches the giclops menacingly while Abhiraj makes sure Isaac is alright. The giclops is unimpressed, it brings up its mighty chainsaw and revs it loud, releasing a booming roar from the machine, echoing loudly across all of LOLEAF. The figure knows that is his cue, this was exactly when it had happened to him, he remembers looking through his squinted eyes to see the shape of a person fly out towards the beast and instantly kill it. "Hope I don't miss," the figure jokes, "that would let me down." Rushing from behind the giclops, the figure pushes off of a nearby rock and jumps high in the air, deciding now would be a good moment to change into his god-tier outfit for effect. After fazing slightly, the knight of breath literally flies towards the giclops, the wind holding him in the air and making his cape look awesome. Retrieving his titanium needles from his strife deck, the figure plunges them deep into the back of the giclops, instantly turning it to grist, while Brendan, Abhiraj and Isaac stare at him in awe.

"What are you?" Brendan asks, awe in his eyes. Remembering this moment, the figure responds the exact same way.

"I," he begins, pointing to Isaac, "am him." The three boys look at each other in confusion, then back to the man claiming to be Isaac.

"Can we have some context?" Abhiraj asks, "you look close enough him, but how?"

"Ah, Abhiraj," future Isaac says, a smile on his face, "you always were the smartest of us all. Have you learned to use your psionics yet?" Abhiraj stared at him blankly. "Shoot," future Isaac continues, "spoilers. Anyways, you'll learn to use your powers later, for now, we need to save Thomas." Future Isaac turns around and starts walking uphill towards the school, when Abhiraj grabs his arm from behind him.

"Hey," he says, "you never answered, how are you here?" Future Isaac laughs.

"I'm from the future, er, from another timeline? Which was further along than this one, so it kind of was from the future? Ugh, I hate time travel, never my strong suit." Abhiraj looks at him blankly again, clearly confused. Future Isaac shakes his head.

"Maybe you only became smart when you god-tiered. Whatever, let's get going." Turning around again, future Isaac starts floating up to the computer lab, not waiting for the other boys to catch up. Brendan and Abhiraj help Isaac up, and carry him up the mountain, making painfully slow progress compared to future Isaac, who had already made it to the room. Whenever imps came close, Brendan would leave Isaac in the hands of Abhiraj and would fight them off with his scythe before taking Isaac back from the much smaller boy. Finally, they arrive at the computer lab where Isaac was waiting outside, spinning his needles in his hands. "About time," he says, "well, I think this is as far as I can go in this timeline. My timeline's about to scratch anyways, so it's time for me to go." He looks at his past version, smiling. He knew this didn't happen in his timeline, but he didn't care, he was doomed anyways, and he needed to let himself know. "You're gonna do great, Isaac. You won't think that you do, and everyone will insist you saved them, but you still won't feel like you accomplished much. Take it from me, literally yourself, you did it. Nothing could have been done without you, so, since you'll never say it yourself, on behalf of us, the future, and the denizens, thank you." Future Isaac then turns to Abhiraj, "you're not getting a specibus, so stop worrying about it. Spend more time using your brain, that's when you'll learn to fight." Before any of the three boys can ask him what he means, he turns around, flies a fair distance away, then stabs himself with his needles before disappearing in the air. The three boys look at each other, and feel sad at the death of their friend from the future who had sacrificed himself to save them. After taking a moment of silence for the now-dead friend, they walk into the computer lab to see a wave of imps stand in front of a cowering group of students and one teacher. The only thing standing in between the two groups was one dark-haired child, and a glowing computer ghost. Thomas looks behind the imps, noticing the entrance of his three friends.

"HELP!" he shouts, apparently in distress, despite appearing perfectly fine. Brendan springs into action, retrieving his scythe and cleaving it through a group of imps, turning them into grist before bringing the scythe back above his head and cutting up more of them. ComputerSprite starts swinging its mouse around, smacking imps left and right, occasionally circling around one's neck, suffocating it until it explodes. Abhiraj and Isaac stand back, watching the two fights take on wave after wave of imps, when they notice an ogre appear in the open doorway behind them. Turning around to face the larger beast, Isaac backs up against a wall, and uses it to support himself, while Abhiraj doesn't move, he just examines the scene before him.

"You're not getting a specibus…" Abhiraj whispers to himself, "spend more time using your brain…" A small detail appears before the small indian, the ogre was too heavy for the floor to support it without a foundation, a simple tug, and the whole ogre would tumble down the mountain. A small stone sitting at the foot of the doorway presents itself, in the perfect position to kick the beast's leg out from under it. Abhiraj concentrates hard, if the rock would just shift a bit, it would roll perfectly against the legs of the ogre. The rock shakes, filling Abhiraj with glee. "I can do it!" he thinks, then begins to concentrate harder, the exact momentum it would need to make the desired impact, the debris shakes again, more this time, and Abhiraj pours all of his hope into the trust that this one stone could save them all from the advancing ogre, when suddenly, the rock drops. It rolls from its position and tumbles towards the ogre, now immediately in front of Abhiraj, who looks at the creature dead in the eyes, then smiles and waves. "Bye," he says as the rock hits the back of the underling's leg, knocking it off balance, and falling down through the floor before falling down the mountain, leaving a trail of grist behind it. Isaac stares at Abhiraj, eyes wide, clearly amazed. Abhiraj turns around to see Brendan and ComputerSprite finishing off the last of the imps and drastically rising on their Echeladders. Abhiraj helps Isaac walk towards Thomas and Brendan, finished with the remaining imps.

"You guys ok?" Isaac asks. Thomas nods.

"You guys could have gotten here sooner," Thomas complains, "ComputerSprite here has been fighting off imps for almost an hour! It needs to power down!" As if on cue, the sprite stops glowing, but continues floating, the screen on its face now dark.

"Then lets get back to the school, we should meet up with the rest of the guys," Brendan says, "we need to take the civilians too." Scanning the crowd, Brendan notices a lack of Matthew's brother, who had been in the room when they came here before leaving Earth. Disregarding it, the four boys lead the innocent teenagers and the very confused teacher back down the mountain towards the main school building, where they sent all of them to look for safety among the other teachers and students around the school, still no sign of Matthew's brother. After sending off all of the civilians, the four boys return to the cafeteria where they had left Ryan and Kobe, and were met with a truly shocking sight.

**Author's Notes:**

Greetings, mortals. I'm back for another chapter, and something actually happened! Actually, quite a lot of stuff happened, temporal shenanigans, god tier reveal and a character rescue, pretty good for one chapter. I hope to update another chapter tomorrow, but it might not happen, it depends on how distracted I get, so no promises. In case it wasn't clear enough, future Isaac committed sudoku because doomed timelines can't interact with the alpha timeline without dying, and he knew that, so he decided to end his life himself rather than waiting for his imminent death, and since he died to keep the timeline alpha, it was heroic. I think that's everything I need to explain, so I'll (maybe) see you guys tomorrow. Farewell, mortals!


	16. A Cave is Discovered

**======= CARL: BE COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF THE EVENTS THAT JUST TOOK PLACE**

Carl successfully ignores what just happened miles away, as do the other three members of his party. They continue to walk towards the valley parallel to the adjacent mountain, not knowing about the appearance, then sudden disappearance, of their friend from a future doomed timeline. The walk towards the valley was relatively calm, if any underling dared to try to stop them, Carl would chainsaw them to bits without even batting an eye.

"Kill before they kill," he keeps saying to himself, "they're trying to hurt me, and I won't let that happen." While Carl protects the group, the other three stay back and discuss what they would do after they mapped out the valley.

"I think we should just see if there's anything dangerous and head back to the school," Josiah says, "we may have one sprite with us, but we don't know what else could be out here."

"Well," Nate counters in a soft voice, "I think it would be best if we stayed as long as we could and gathered whatever resources we can. This is the land of literally everything, isn't it? There must be at least a bit of useful things here." The three boys agree on Nate's idea, and continue to walk towards the far off valley as Carl floats above their heads, ready to decimate anything that comes close to them.

"I'm kinda worried about Carl," Michael says after a long pause of silence and walking, "it seems like he really wants to tell someone about his powers, but he keeps saying that he can't." The other boys look at him, confused. "Well," the smaller boy continues, "he told me something about those moon things you were talking about, Josiah. He said that I needed to wake up for him to be able to tell me about his powers, but I don't know how I can wake up." Josiah attempts to provide a solution.

"Well," he says, "like I said earlier, you need to face something about yourself that you don't want to. You don't have to tell us what it is, but do you have any big secrets that mess with your sleep at all?" Thinking for a moment, Michael shakes his head.

"No, I sleep pretty well, and no one really trusts me with any secrets. It's kind of insulting, actually."

"I can fix that," Nate says as he prepares to tell Michael a thought that had been on his mind since they had started playing the game, "I don't think Matthew's our best choice for a leader." Michael stares at him, mouth open at the confession.

"You call that a secret?" he says as he starts laughing, "we all know that! Matthew doesn't get along with half of us!" Nate begins to blush, he genuinely thought he was sharing a deep secret about one of their friends, but it turns out he just keeps to many things to himself. "The only worse person to have as a leader would be Carl!" Nate glances up, worried that Carl may have heard the insult, but he is much to deep in a conversation with himself, probably about hating something, to notice. As he finishes laughing, Michael shrugs. "Then I don't know what I can do to wake up, but I feel like it's really important for me to do."

"Uh, guys?" Josiah says as he directs their attention to a newfound obstacle directly in front of them. The two other boys stop their conversation and look at what seems to be a flat, circular stone with markings spread out across the entire top of it, and a small pothole-sized hole in the very centre of it. "Carl!" Josiah calls to the boy flying above them, who stops talking and looks down at the other three, then floats down.

"Sup?" Nate points to the large stone that Carl hadn't yet seemed to notice.

"This thing? What is it?" Nate asks as Carl just casually glances at it.

"Big rock?" he half says, half asks as the other three collectively face palm.

"No duh," Nate says, irritated, "but you have some sort of like, super sprite brain or whatever, you have no idea what this might be?" Carl shakes his head.

"There's a pretty big gap in my memory about this, all I can say is that it might have something to do with the denizens." Josiah, Michael and Nate just look at him, clearly confused. "Wow, you guys really are dumb, aren't you? Denizens are like the final boss of this game, they're like, mega powerful, but they give you a lot of awesome loot if you beat em up."

"Can we try to kill them now?" Michael asks, "there's fourteen of us, against just one of them." Carl shakes his head.

"There's supposed to be these gates above our school that lead us to the land, and from going through all of them we should all become strong enough to take them on."

"How are we in the land," Nate begins, "if we didn't go through any gates?" Carl shrugs.

"The gates are more like guidelines, we don't have to follow them. They just give us the best options if we wanna take on the denizens."

"But what if we don't?" Nate asks. Carl looks at him, confused.

"What if we don't fight the denizens? Can't we, in theory, just keep grinding on the level one enemies until we're all max level, then take them on?" Thinking for a moment, Carl shrugs his ghostly shoulders.

"I guess," he says, "I don't think they're supposed to come for us. They're supposed to be asleep until we come to them." Zoning out of the conversation, Michael steps on, and begins examining, the markings of the slab below him. They seem to be some sort of symbol, but he can't figure out what they're trying to depict, so he makes his way to the hole in the centre instead. Peering into it, Michael notices that there is a bunch of metallic rungs leading down to an unknown cavern deep below the ground, and for a reason that he himself isn't even sure of, begins climbing down them. Nate glances over just in time to see Michael climbing down.

"Dude!" Nate calls after him, but Michael completely ignores him.

"Screw the rules," Michael mutters to himself, "I have money." He giggles at the joke he told himself and continues climbing down the rungs, climbing further and further away from the light above. Arriving at the entrance of the the hole, Carl yells down to Michael.

"Michael, if you don't stop right now and climb back up here, I WILL come down there and get you!" From deep in the hole, the three boys who remained behind heard the vague response of: "Screw the rules." Shaking his head, Carl flies up, angles his face towards the hole in the floor and rushes at it, diving deep into the crypt and quickly running into Michael, when Carl grabs the collar of his shirt and continues dragging him down, now unable to change his orientation.

"It's kinda cramped in here!" Michael complains.

"Shut up, I'm saving you." Carl responds. The two boys quickly fly down the hole, starting to see a form of orange and yellow light emanating from below them. "The denizens…" Carl whispers. Upon arriving at the bottom of the ladder, Carl repositions himself to carrying Michael back up to the surface, but Michael rushes towards the source of the light, eager to see the great creatures that they are destined to fight. "Michael!" Carl whispers harshly, "we can't wake them up! They'll kill us!" Michael clearly does not care, he continues running through the rapidly expanding cave and towards the light. Carl flies after him and grabs his arm at the very end of the tunnel, which ends leading into a giant spherical room, filled with six humungous monsters, and five equally large corpses, seemingly teared apart by the living six.

"What are those?" Michael asks in terror as all six of the remaining denizens notice the intruders and direct their full attention to the two insignificant teenagers.

"The things that are gonna kill us." Carl pauses a moment to stare at one particular beast, the one that seems to be the source of all of the light that literally shone as bright as the daylight, it seemed to have the sun for its face.

"Yaldabaoth…" Carl breathes in a mixture of awe and sheer horror. Another denizen with large spikes rears its head and lets out an immense cry, snapping Carl out of his trance and bringing back his common logic. Carl grabs Michael and turns away before flying straight towards the exit, and bringing the two bots to the safety of the outside. Nate and Josiah rush towards them, making sure they're ok.

"What was that screech?" Josiah asks as Carl shakes his head.

"Don't worry about us, leave the valley, we might be able to check it out later." Carl rushes his sentences, trying to get his point across as quickly as he can. "Turn and run, go back to the school, go find the others, I don't care! Just get away from here, no one is ever to come here again, got it?!" The boys nod, clearly scared at the taller boy's seriousness. "The denizens are awake, and Yaldabaoth won't just sit down there and let us prepare for him, he wants blood, he wants MY blood, and he won't stop until he has it. Let the imps come to us, we need to fortify the school, we can't let anyone get hurt, now GO!" The three other boys stumble around each other as they turn and sprint towards the school, terrified as to what has just happened. Before Carl himself flies away, he turns back to the only thing protecting this entire planet from the terror beneath them, the slab. "We will be ready for you, all of you," he mutters, "just try not to kill any more of yourselves until we are. Don't wanna ruin the fun, now do we?" Carl turns around and protects the three weaker boys from the now much less intimidating inhabitants of LOLEAF as they run back towards the school. Upon arriving at the school, they come face to face with a shocking sight.

**Author's Notes:**

Greetings, mortals. Sorry I haven't updated in a while, but I've been busy with school, video games, homework, video games, coming up with ideas for the story, video games, and sometimes even video games. From now on, I'll probably only update once, maybe twice a week, but I doubt I'll be able to keep up with the original "three updates a week" thing I thought I would do when I first started it. Now, with my procrastination out of the way, let's talk about the chapter! First of all, let's shoot the giant elephant in the room, yes, half of the denizens are dead, and yes, one of the ones that are still living is Yaldabaoth. Come on, if being literally part chainsaw and a sprite isn't deserving of having the most powerful denizen, I don't know what is. His classpect also works with him being awesome, but you'll probably find out about it later. Now, shooting the slightly smaller elephants that are in the room, Michael wants to wake up, Matthew is horribly fit to be a leader, (that jerk) and, if you were paying attention to the endings of the last three chapters, you could see that I used the term "shocking sight," three times in a row. You will find out what that shocking sight is next chapter, which may or may not be next week, as we've already determined, I procrastinate a lot. But that's all for this chapter, so farewell, mortals!


	17. A Device is Upgraded

**======= RYAN: BE LONELY**

Ryan successfully feels lonely. He thinks that his friends completely ditched him, leaving him to protect the innocent people of the school so that they could all go explore. Jerks.

"Whatever," Ryan says to the empty cafeteria, "let's see what I can do on my own." First, Ryan checks his computer, exploring all of the options the in game interface allowed, which were limited to say the least. Spending some time fidgeting with the controls, Ryan is able to move all of the Alchemiters to the centre of the room, move all of the tables not being used by Ryan to the sides of the room, and fix the shape of the cafeteria to make it a perfectly square room, rather than circular. Checking another part of the HUD, Ryan finds a dropdown menu to deploy even more devices, and… a CD… for some reason. With his massive amount of build grist, Ryan easily drops down every device with tons of grist left, but making the space around him really cramped.

"This is stupid," Ryan mutters to himself. Everything he just deployed seems to be completely useless except for the disk, which he runs on his computer. It seems to be some form of resource sharing device. Ryan nods as he installs it and immediately starts draining the resources from his jerk friends. Going back to the older devices deployed earlier, Ryan checks the… keyboard thing? He doesn't remember what they called it when they deployed it earlier. There seems to be a card stuck inside it, similar to the ones the teenagers had all used to create their artifacts used to enter the game, except this one had no holes punched into it. Taking the card to the spinny thingy, or whatever it was called, Ryan puts the empty card in the slot and the needle begins spinning, but accomplishes nothing.

"Oh, right," Ryan thinks to himself, "I need the totem." Going back to the metal box he had fallen off earlier, Ryan looks in and pulls out another totem. "There's a bunch," he thinks. Putting the cruxite dowel in position on the Totem Lathe, Ryan activates the device again, but still with no effect. He takes out the card and notices that there are no holes in the back, which may be the reason it's not working. Taking the card back to the Punch Designix without any idea of what to type in for a code, Ryan simply types eight ones, the apparent character limit, and punches the card. Taking the card back to the Totem Lathe, Ryan tries to activate the device again, and succeeds, but only in making the totem slightly thinner.

"Screw you too," Ryan mutters as he begins to get frustrated with the lack of reward for his efforts. Not caring, Ryan takes the thinned totem and brings it to the nearest circular platform that had read all of their totems when they were entering to create their artifacts. Placing the newly carved totem on the smaller pedestal, the Alchemiter reads it and creates another blank card. Ryan nods. "This may be useful for something," he thinks. Going to examine the other devices, Ryan takes interest in two particular items he had just placed, one seems to be some sort of extension to one of the Alchemiters, the other seems to be able to take in one of the cards Ryan holds and connect it to the extension. Trying out his theory, Ryan places his blank card inside the hollow shunt and places it on the extension, once again, accomplishing nothing. In frustration, Ryan takes out the card and slams it down on the shunt, causing it to disappear inside of the card. The teenage boy stares at what he's done for just a moment, then smiles evilly.

"Finally, some progress." Rushing to his computer, then the alchemiter, he deploys more shunts, then empty cards. Ryan starts to captchalogue every device in sight, soon filling his entire deck with Alchemiters, Totem Lathes, Cruxtruders and Punch Designixes. Next, he places all of them within the shunts and connects them to the extension, massively upgrading the one remaining Alchemiter, giving it the potential to do all of the jobs the previous devices had been able to. Thinking of what to do next, Ryan makes his way over to his the computers originally owned by his friends and puts them all in cards before connecting them to shunts and adding them to the Alchemiter, adding a keyboard to the side of it, and making it his new one stop shop for everything he could possibly need to do. This also gives him access to all of his friends' computers. From there, Ryan deploys all of the devices possible before captchaloguing them and adding them to the Alchemiter, making it take up all of the remaining space in the cafeteria, but allowing it to do so much more than it originally could. Going up to the new keyboard attached to the Alchemiter, Ryan types "help," hoping that it would give him an explanation on how to use the new massive device. Instead, the holopad upgrade produces a holographic copy of an instruction manual with the word Sburb written on the front cover, which Ryan smiles at and creates by hitting enter. With a very minor decrease in grist, the massive machine creates the instruction manual for Sburb, but as Ryan makes his way on top of the machine to grab it, he notices something behind him. Turning around expecting to see a giant monster like the one that had attacked Carl, Ryan was pleasantly relieved to see that it was instead Matthew's very angry TeacherSprite.

"Hey," Ryan says, "Sup?" The sprite fumes in anger at the fact that the pathetic teenage boy did not realize his distress of not being able to communicate with him. Ryan is completely aware that the teacher can't respond, but he finds it so funny how he waves his arms around in anger. Getting over the fact that Ryan wouldn't try to help him, TeacherSprite points to something on the other side of the Alchemiter. Disregarding him, Ryan jumps down and goes around the massive machine to see seven unprototyped sprites, remaining in their circular forms with their first prototypes still sitting inside of them. Ryan turns to TeacherSprite. "You want me to prototype them?" The teacher nods enthusiastically.

"Finally," he thinks, "the idiot child realizes what I've been trying to tell him." Abhiraj's PageSprite floats over to Ryan and begins writing on itself.

"_Child,_" it writes, "_you don't realize your error. Adding so many computers together takes a large toll on the power, find a way to fix it, or you'll lose connection and you won't be able to build anymore._" Ryan nods and rushes out of the cafeteria, much to the annoyance of TeacherSprite, who had just told him to prototype the sprites. He turns to PageSprite, anger in his eyes. "_Sorry?_" TeacherSprites raises his arms and floats away. Ryan runs through the school, taking pauses at every classroom to make sure the students and teachers were alright before convincing them to stay where they were and to not let anything else in. At one classroom, Ryan sees someone he recognizes, Conor's "technically not girlfriend," Tina.

"Ryan! What is going on! Where's Conor?!" She yells at him.

"Tina," Ryan says calmly, "calm down, Conor left with Matthew and the rest, you need to stay here and be safe." Tina shakes her head.

"Conor could be dying out there!" She makes vague hand motions to the windows in the room, "I need to make sure he's alright!" Ryan shakes his head.

"I can't let you do that, Tina, you need to stay here." Tina rolls her eyes.

"That's cute," she says, "you think you can stop me." Tina pushes Ryan out of the way easily and runs to the cafeteria, Ryan closely following after.

"Stop!" Ryan yells, but to no avail, the asian girl was much further ahead of him, determined to find her friend. Finally, Ryan sees her up ahead, stopped straight in her tracks, eyes wide, staring at yet another giclops. "Oh come on!" Ryan yells, "do you guys have nowhere else to be!?" Tina turns back to Ryan, confusion and terror on her face.

"What is that!?" Before Ryan can even explain, Tina turns back to the underling, "doesn't even matter!" Tina glances around in desperation, she was stupid enough to try to fight the monster off, but not stupid enough to do it empty-handed. Finding the first thing that slightly resembles a weapon, the meter stick that Conor had prototyped, she reaches towards it to use it against the giclops.

"No! Don't do it!" Ryan shouts. But it's too late, Tina wraps her fingers around the meter stick and begins to shine brightly as she screams, appearing a few seconds later as TinaSprite, holding a meter stick in hand. The new sprite examines her new form, unsure of what to say or think. The only thing she can say is:

"What?" The giclops roars as his body changes to slightly resemble an orc.

"Darn it, Brendan, you just HAD to prototype a list of nerdy made-up fantasies, didn't you?" Ryan thinks to himself angrily. The orc/giclops stomps towards the two teenagers, and Tina holds up her meter stick and brings it down hard on the beasts head, making it howl in pain before turning into a pixie and flying away.

"Oh no you don't!" Tina shouts as she flies after the shapeshifting monster, swinging at it with her stick. Ryan face palms.

"Women…" he mutters as he goes back to his original mission of making sure everyone in the school is safe, and to find a way to keep the school from running out of power. While walking through the school, Ryan notices a door that he had seen before, but never really paid attention to until now. "Generator room," Ryan says aloud, reading the plaque on the door. Opening the door, the boy descends to the basement, seeing the generator steaming from overuse, the Alchemiter really does use a lot of power. Running back to the cafeteria, Ryan signals the sprites to follow him through the school, leading them to the rapidly heating up machine giving them power. Ryan knows that it would be too hot to interact with himself, but he hopes that maybe an all-powerful computer game construct could do it without melting into a puddle. Pointing at the generator, Ryan offers any of the sprites a chance to prototype themselves, but the only one apparently interested is Nate's RouterSprite. It floats over Ryan's head and rushes towards the generator, absorbing it into itself with a flash of light, turning into a ghost with electricity crackling from it, and a full wifi connection. Ryan shrugs.

"Whatever works." From the other side of the school, Ryan hears a familiar shout.

"RYAN!" Tina shouts from across the school. Gather up all the sprites, Ryan runs back to the cafeteria, where a very angry TinaSprite is waiting for him, holding her meter stick menacingly. She floats over to Ryan and hits the side of his face with the stick.

"OW!" Ryan yells, "what was that for?!"

"For turning me into this ghost-bird-stick thing!" Tina yells back at him.

"That wasn't my fault!"

"Yes it was!" Tina hits Ryan on the face again.

"Stop that!" Ryan yells. In response, Tina hits him again.

"No!" As Tina brings up the stick to hit Ryan again, he grabs the stick and pushes it down.

"Ok, Tina," he begins, "to make sure we don't die, you're going to need to stop hitting me, alright?" Reluctantly, Tina nods. "Good," Ryan continues, "first of all, you see these ghost things?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, we need to find something to go with each of them, then they'll become like you."

"They'll become a teenage girl?" Tina asks, wonder in her eyes as Ryan face palms.

"Tina, you're an idiot." She rips the meter stick from Ryan's hand and slaps him again. "Ok," Ryan begins, "I did kind of ask for that one. But no, they'll become a ghost thing, like you and that teacher over there." Ryan points behind him to the gagged TeacherSprite, who raises a hand in silent greeting. Ryan continues. "These things are supposed to protect us while we play the game. You guys are apparently really super powerful and smart and stuff."

"So, nothing changed?" Tina jokes.

"No," Ryan says, "you became literally the exact opposite of what you were." Once again, Tina hits him.

"When will you learn? You stupid idiot." Ryan shakes his head.

"Whatever, we need to find things to prototype. These things will protect every one of us."

"So wait," Tina asks, "each of these are made for someone?" Ryan nods. "Then who am I for?"

"Conor."

"Perfect! I can hit him with my stick whenever he does something dumb!" Tina laughs evilly, causing Ryan to back away, scared.

"Oh… Okay then."

"Wait!" Tina shouts, "which one is for Kobe?" Ryan laughs to himself. No one was really sure why, but Tina always likes to mess with her friends, but mostly to Kobe and Conor. Ryan silently points to the jacket. Tina smiles, floats out into the hallway and stops at the nearest locker. She reaches her hand out to grab the lock, and with relative ease, tears it off of the door, leaving the door hanging open and spilling a few stray textbooks. Returning to the cafeteria, Tina tosses the lock into the ghost resembling Kobe's jacket as it changes into StraitjacketSprite with a flash of light. Ryan, once again, face palms.

"Because why the heck not?" he says sarcastically as Tina turns to him.

"Don't question me, it's just a game, isn't it? Why not have some fun with it?" Ryan shrugs and reaches into his backpack, hoping to find something to prototype before Tina ruins someone else's sprite, however, the only thing of interest he finds is the small container of Mentos that he had brought to school that day. The only three remaining sprites were his SpriteSprite, (genius), Andrew's BackpackSprite, and Patrick's MirrorSprite. A sudden realization hits Ryan, it would be completely stupid, but it would be hilarious, I mean hey, it's just a game, right? Turning to the three sprites, Ryan takes out two Mentos, pops one in his mouth, and tosses the other towards SpriteSprite. Tina watches from a distance away. "Why mints?" she asks him. Ryan shrugs.

"You did science experiments in grade one, didn't you?" Tina suddenly realizes what Ryan's plan is. As the mint collides with the soda ghost, a brilliant flash of light fills the room, soon fading away to reveal Ryan's creation; SodaSprite. It doesn't seem to look any different, still just like a ghost with a bottle for a head, but now there appears to be liquid inside, constantly moving around and letting out an occasional hissing sound.

"Ok," Ryan says, "I think I may deserve to be hit for that one." Tina groans.

"It loses the effect when you want it," she whines. Ryan laughs.

"We just need two more things to prototype, then we're done. Can you think of anything?" Ryan asks. After thinking for a moment, Tina nods.

"Follow me, ghost thingies!" she says as she quickly flies out of the to the cafeteria, slams the door behind her and zooms around a corner leading deeper into the school. The remaining mirror and backpack sprites follow Tina, but Patrick's MirrorSprite runs face first into the now closed door, prototyping it, and in a flash of light, becomes GateSprite. BackpackSprite, unfazed by this, rushes past the new sprite and continues to chase Tina. Putting his face in his hand, Ryan examines what has become of their supposed "guides." A mute teacher, a piece of paper, a generator, a straitjacket, a bottle of pop that could explode at any moment, a phone with headphones, a cross between a spider and a mouse, a door, combination of characters that switches so often it can't even finish a sentence before it changes to a new body, and a book. Not to mention Tina, Carl, and whatever Tina ends up prototyping the backpack with. Ryan shakes his head.

"This is not going to end well." Minutes pass until Tina returns with the new, and apparently "improved," FolderSprite.

"It can organize our stuff for us!" Tina says enthusiastically, "it can hold my Starbucks, my computer…" Ryan assumes she'll continue to list everything if he doesn't stop her.

"Great, sure," he says, distracted by his dread for their outcome in this game." Tina tilts her head to the left.

"You don't seem as excited as I do."

"Great observation there, Captain Obvious." Tina pouts, but doesn't hit him this time.

"Come on, don't be angry with my idea. I'll let you store your stuff in here too, if you want."

"No, it's not that, it's just," Ryan struggles to find the right words, "I feel kind of betrayed by my friends."

"Kobe, Conor and Matthew?" Tina asks.

"Yeah, and a few other ones that you don't know."

"What did they do?"

"They kinda just… Left me here while they all went on a cool adventure." Ryan looks down at his feet as he says it.

"Well, screw them," Tina smiles at him, "you turned me into this super cool ghost girl! That's kind of awesome!" Ryan shrugs.

"I guess so?" Tina takes her meter stick and slaps Ryan's face again.

"What was that for?!" Ryan asks, furious.

"For being a wimp. Now, show me how this big machine thing works," she gestures to the majorly upgraded Alchemiter.

"It's like," Ryan begins slowly, "a bunch of things that we're supposed to use during the game mixed together. Plus I added our computers to it, and now it can make whatever I type in." Tina nods.

"What else can you add to it?" Ryan shrugs.

"Anything that I can fit into these cards," he responds as he holds up the captchalogue cards, "which I guess is anything. I haven't found anything that didn't fit inside one yet."

"Cool," Tina says, "so you put the cards in here?" She motions to one of the Totem Lathe attachments on the Alchemiter.

"Card," Ryan corrects.

"Sorry?"

"Card. Singular, you only put one in at a time."

"Are you sure? Because it looks like you can put in multiple ones."

"Let me see that." Ryan examines to the part of the Alchemiter Tina is pointing to, and sure enough, it looks like it can hold a lot of cards at once. "Huh," Ryan says, "let's see how this works." Ryan retrieves his bubble wand from his strife deck and captchalogues it. "What should I mix this with?" he asks Tina.

"Wait here for one second," Tina says in an evilly clever tone as she rushes once again deeper into the school, returning minutes later with a microscope and some sort of vial in her hand. "I went to the science lab!" She holds out the microscope. "First," she says, "put this on the machine thingy. See if you can make bigger or smaller things with it. Next," she holds out the vial, "acid bubbles!" Ryan stares at her for a moment then begins to laugh.

"I like the way you think." Following her instructions, Ryan adds the microscope to a shunt and connects it to the Alchemiter, now allowing the ability to modify the size of objects created, then alchemizes his bubble wand and the vial of acid to create the acidic bubble solution wand. Ryan nods, clearly impressed. "Nice." Suddenly, from the direction of the open hole in the side of the school, Ryan and Tina hear familiar voices.

"What the heck is this?!" Matthew yells.

**Author's Notes:**

Greetings, mortals. I like this chapter, it finally gives Ryan some screen time, he's been so alone for the last couple chapters. Plus, the really fun Alchemiter upgrades are fun to think about, as they can lead to some very advanced weapon upgrades, I'm just waiting for Conor's "ultra gotta go fast super blanket of death." Also, the second self-prototype, and it isn't even a player of the game. For once, the background characters are actually going to mean something, and I love it. I got a lot more done in this chapter than I thought I would, I was just planning to upgrade the Alchemiter and prototype the sprites, but this works too. Anyways, I've shown myself for now, which means I need to recede back into my cave of emptiness for another week. Farewell, mortals.


End file.
